The varieties of Bolivian maize are the result of thousands of years of selective breeding for superior agronomic and cooking traits.
Climate and soil diversity is a key feature of the landscape of Bolivia, a country extending between 9° to 22° South and 57° to 69° West. The indigenous cultures that played a key role in the differentiation of the native Bolivian maize races were the Aymara in the north, the Sauces in central Bolivia, and the Yampara in the south. Specifically, the Aymara adapted maize crop growth to the Lake Titicaca plateau, about 3,500-3,800 meters above sea level, a harsh environment, cold, arid, and windy.
Traditionally, maize is cropped in the following regions: Low tropics (200–900 masl) Subtropics (1,000–1,600 masl) Sub-Andean Chaco (200–1,500 masl) Inter-Andean slopes and valleys (1,700–3,000 masl, as far as the shore of Lake Titicaca at 3,800 masl) Most maize harvested under 1,000 masl is cropped in commercial farms and used to feed livestock.
Use as food
Maize is a staple ingredient of traditional Bolivian cooking. It is used to prepare typical dishes such as:
Api - hot drink for breakfast, Chaque & Lagua - soup, Chicha - alcoholic drink, Choclo - kernels boiled inside the ear leaves, Confituras - cooked popped kernels dressed with honey, Huminta - smashed milky kernels, seasoned and cooked inside the ear leaves, Mote - dry cooked kernels, Tostado or Palomitas de maíz - popcorn.
Different varieties of maize are used in diverse locally specific culinary recipes. For instance, purple maize can be used to produce a hot beverage called "Api" in the highlands and white maize can be used to make a cold beverage called "Somó" in the lowlands
History
Maize crossed from the Peruvian mountains into Bolivia about 3,000 BCE as a marginal food of the Andean peoples. Primitive maize, with small and popping kernels, and flint endosperm aligned in four distinct rows on the ear, later shifted to a decussate eight row alignment. Prior to the Incan rule of Bolivia, selection of the mean primitive ears with eight rows diversified and underwent qualitative specialization (kernel composition, consistency, shape and color), followed by the increase in the number of the rows. The key events of this process were; the increase in the ear size, the increase in the number of the kernels per ear, the increase in the number of the rows of kernels, the increase in the kernel size, the change in the kernel texture.
Later, selection was directed to link molecular markers (pigmentation) to the different kinds of present-day varieties. For instance; semi-flint kernel varieties are yellow, floury kernel varieties are white, soft texture kernel varieties are motley.
Maize from the "Morocho" and "Perla" varieties crossed the Andes mountain ridge and adapted to the lower altitude and different climates of Paraguay, Argentina, and the Brazilian lowlands, before the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.
Contemporary classification
Since the mid-1970s, the Centro Fitotécnico y Ecogenético de Pairumani in Cochabamba collected and characterized over 1,500 maize samples. These were studied by environment, morphology, and cytological analysis of the chromosomes, resulting in the classification of 7 racial complexes, 45 races and hundreds of agro-ecotypes. These accessions are presently stored at the Pairumani germplasm bank.
On the basis of these and previous studies, Aureliano Brandolini and collaborators identified the following racial complexes and races of native maize;