Peanuts and peanut farmers of the Rio Beni: Traditional crop genetic resource management in the Bolivian Amazon.
Item
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Title
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Peanuts and peanut farmers of the Rio Beni: Traditional crop genetic resource management in the Bolivian Amazon.
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Identifier
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AAI9207138
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identifier
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9207138
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Creator
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Williams, David Edison.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Ghillean T. Prance
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Date
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1991
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Biology, Botany | Agriculture, General | Anthropology, Cultural | Agriculture, Agronomy
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Abstract
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Although the peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) has been the object of ample agronomic and taxonomic study, many basis questions remain regarding the peanut's origin and evolution in South America. A poorly known area of northern Bolivia was selected for exploration and study in an effort to shed light on the origin of the erect subspecies (ssp. fastigiata Waldron) and to understand the agricultural conditions under which it evolved and diversified. The chosen study site is located midway between recognized centers of peanut sub-specific diversity, where indigenous farmers cultivate numerous primitive peanut landraces using age-old agricultural methods. A community of Tacana Indian farmers living on the Beni River became the focus of the study. Conserving an ancient but little-studied cropping system, six distinct landraces of peanuts, all belonging to the erect subspecies, are planted extensively on riverine sandbars exposed during the low-water season. A selected portion of the harvest is replanted in upland slash-and-burn gardens as a seed crop in order to insure a fresh supply for the following season's sandbar planting. This cropping system exerts a strong and continuous selection pressure on the peanut germplasm, maintaining characters specifically adapted to this agroecosystem. It is demonstrated that these adaptive morphological and physiological characters are precisely those which are taxonomically diagnostic of the erect subspecies, Arachis hypogaea ssp. fastigiata, suggesting that their ancient origin and evolution took place under similar agroecological conditions. Archeological, ethnographic, linguistic, and historical evidence, as well as the modern distribution and diversity of the erect landraces support the notion that this subspecies had its center of origin in the vicinity of the study area. At present, most of the traditional peanut landraces in the study area are in danger of becoming lost. The information recovered has important implications for in situ crop genetic resource conservation and local agricultural development projects, for which appropriate strategies are proposed.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
