pusa, bihar, india
Rajendra Agricultural University

Antiquity of maize in India
--M. Kumar and J. K. S. Sachan

Post-Columbian introduction of maize into India by the Portuguese in the 16th century or later has been accepted by most of the maize workers. However, the peculiar features of maize being grown in remote northeastern Himalayan tracts adjoining Burma and Tibet have stimulated an interesting discussion among maize workers on the possible pre-Columbian introduction of maize in these hilly tracts of the Himalayas. This curiosity has led to extensive work on various aspects of the NEH maize. Some observations on ethno-botany (Stonor and Anderson, 1949; Marszewski, 1968, 1978), plant type (Mukherjee et al., 1971; Singh, 1977, 1989; Sachan and Sarkar, 1982), pachytene analysis (Gupta and Jain, 1971; Dash et al.; 1986, Pande et al., 1988; Kumar and Sachan, 1992), chromosome banding (Mohan and Raut, 1980; Sachan et al., 1982; Pande et al., 1983) and biochemical assays (Pereira et al., 1983) have been reported.
Jeffreys (1965) has suggested that maize had been introduced by the Arabs and not by the Portuguese, in the pre-Columbian era. The I>

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