Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 traditional maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

 varieties have been, according to historical, archaeological, botanical, morphological, and genetic evidence, molded since the introduction of this exotic

Introduced species

An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...

 cereal crop from the Americas

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

 in the sixteenth century.

History

The speciation

Speciation

Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The biologist Orator F. Cook seems to have been the first to coin the term 'speciation' for the splitting of lineages or 'cladogenesis,' as opposed to 'anagenesis' or 'phyletic evolution' occurring within lineages...

 and evolution of maize varieties in Italy, by means of man-made adaptive selection, maintained a broad genetic variability

Genetic variability

Genetic variability is a measure of the tendency of individual genotypes in a population to vary from one another. Variability is different from genetic diversity, which is the amount of variation seen in a particular population. The variability of a trait describes how much that trait tends to...

 for about four centuries. Traditional varieties and ecotype

Ecotype

In evolutionary ecology, an ecotype,Greek: οίκος = home and τύπος = type, coined by Göte Turesson in 1922 sometimes called ecospecies, describes a genetically distinct geographic variety, population or race within species , which is adapted to specific environmental conditions.Typically, ecotypes...

s were sown in the diversified ecological regions of Italy

Geography of Italy

Italy is located in southern Europe and comprises the long, boot-shaped Italian Peninsula, the land between the peninsula and the Alps, and a number of islands including Sicily and Sardinia . Its total area is , of which is land and...

 until the introduction of Corn Belt

Corn Belt

The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwestern United States where corn has, since the 1850s, been the predominant crop, replacing the native tall grasses. By 1950, 99% of the corn was grown from hybrids. Most corn is fed to livestock, especially hogs and poultry. In recent decades soybeans have...

 hybrids in the twentieth century presented outstanding ecological adaptation

Adaptation

An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....

, yield

Crop yield

In agriculture, crop yield is not only a measure of the yield of cereal per unit area of land under cultivation, yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself...

 and cooking characteristics.

Most Italian agro

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

-ecotypes of maize are from the Indurata and Indentata sections and their combinations, characterized by kernels

Seed

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

 with flint, semi-dent and dent consistency. A few local varieties from the Everta section (pop-corn) were also grown in Italy. The kernel apex can take different shapes: smooth, horned, cuspidate, rostrum-like or indented.

The eco-agronomic

Agricultural economics

Agricultural economics originally applied the principles of economics to the production of crops and livestock — a discipline known as agronomics. Agronomics was a branch of economics that specifically dealt with land usage. It focused on maximizing the crop yield while maintaining a good soil...

 characteristics of Italian traditional varieties match the Mediterranean

Mediterranean climate

A Mediterranean climate is the climate typical of most of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, and is a particular variety of subtropical climate...

 and semi-continental climate of the country, with mostly spring and some summer (post-wheat) sowings; and early (summer) to late (autumn) maturity.

Classification

Classification

Biological classification

Biological classification, or scientific classification in biology, is a method to group and categorize organisms by biological type, such as genus or species. Biological classification is part of scientific taxonomy....

, along the plant cropping and grain cooking characteristics, is summed in the following ear

Ear (botany)

An ear is the grain-bearing tip part of the stem of a cereal plant, such as wheat or maize. It can also refer to "a prominent lobe in some leaves".The ear is a spike, consisting of a central stem on which grows tightly packed rows of flowers...

 types;

• Eight-rows (ottofile),
• Large conic
• Long-ear cylindric,
• Polirows-subconic,
• Short-cycle dwarf conic.

An early description of 12 maize varieties was published by P. Venino in 1916, followed by extensive studies by Tito Vezio Zapparoli

Tito Vezio Zapparoli

Tito Vezio Zapparoli was an Italian agronomist and plant breeder.After graduating in agriculture, he studied the agronomic and morphological characteristics of traditional varieties of maize....

 between 1920 and 1943. An extensive collection of 562 seed samples of local varieties was collected in 1954-1955 by Aureliano Brandolini

Aureliano Brandolini

Aureliano Brandolini was an Italian agronomist and development cooperation scholar.Born in Calolziocorte, Italy, after studying at Liceo Alessandro Manzoni high school in Lecco with Giovanni Ticozzi, he graduated in agriculture at the University of Milan in 1950 and specialized in plant breeding...

.

The agronomic, morphological

Morphology (biology)

In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....

 and cytological

Cell biology

Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...

 characterization, and multi-variate analysis, of such and other accessions stored at the germplasm bank of the "Maize experimental station" in Bergamo

Bergamo

Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...

, allowed the systematic classification of Italian traditional varieties.

According to such classification, Italian traditional maize varieties are:

• Sections Indurata and Indentata (9 racial complexes, 35 races
  Race (biology)
  In biology, races are distinct genetically divergent populations within the same species with relatively small morphological and genetic differences. The populations can be described as ecological races if they arise from adaptation to different local habitats or geographic races when they are...
  
   & 65 agro-ecotypes)
  • Eight-rowed flints and derived races: 6 races and 10 agro-ecotypes
    • Ottofile puri (true eight-rows)
      • Ottofile
      • Ottofile tardivo
      • Tajolone
    • Razze derivate (derivative races)
      • Cannellino
      • Derivati 12-14 file
      • Monachello
  • Conical flints and derived races: 5 races and 15 agro-ecotypes
    • Barbina
    • Biancone
    • Montano
    • Ostesa
    • Poliranghi
  • Late Southern cylindrical flints: 3 races and 4 agro-ecotypes
    • Montoro
    • Pannaro
    • Rodindia
  • Midseason Southern cylindrical flints: 3 races and 6 agro-ecotypes
    • Altosiculo
    • Dindico
    • Trentinella
  • Extra-early dwarf flints: 4 races and 6 agro-ecotypes
    • Agostinello
    • Poliota
    • Tirolese
    • Trenodi
  • Microsperma flints: 4 races e 8 agro-ecotypes
    • Appenniniche
      • Zeppetello
    • Subalpine
      • Cadore
      • Cinquantino Marano
      • Quarantino estivo
  • Padanians: 4 races and 7 agro-ecotypes
    • Poliranghi
      • Bani-Scaiola
      • Pignolo
      • Rostrato-Scagliolo
    • Longispiga
      • Agostano
  • Pearl white flints: 3 races and 4 agro-ecotypes
    • Bianco Perla
    • Cimalunga
    • Righetta bianco
  • Dent corn: 2 races and 5 agro-ecotypes
    • Dentati bianchi antichi
    • Dentati moderni

• Section Everta
  • Pop corn: 3 races and 12 agro-ecotypes
    • Bianco tardivo cremonese
    • Perla prolifico
    • Risiforme precoce

Future

Genetic erosion

Genetic erosion

Genetic erosion is a process whereby an already limited gene pool of an endangered species of plant or animal diminishes even more when individuals from the surviving population die off without getting a chance to meet and breed with others in their endangered low population.Genetic erosion occurs...

 is a menace to the basis of further improvement for a monoic, allogamous

Allogamy

Allogamy is a term used in the field of biological reproduction describing the fertilization of an ovum from one individual with the spermatozoa of another. By contrast, autogamy is the term used for self-fertilization. In humans, the fertilization event is an instance of allogamy...

 species, Zea mays L., whose genetic progress is mainly founded on the combination of the structural and physiological traits, contributed by each parental genotype

Genotype

The genotype is the genetic makeup of a cell, an organism, or an individual usually with reference to a specific character under consideration...

, and a hazard to the specific qualities of different maize varieties, selected throughout the centuries as a major element for each peculiar meal involving maize derivates.