COLLECTING MAIZE LANDRACES IN ALBANIA

Conservation of plant genetic resources is very important for protection of biodiversity. Maize is very often cultivated on small plots in backyards and home gardens. The population which had been cultivated for years, usually without irrigation, was reported to have very good drought resistance. Collecting of maize landraces is emergent duty because they are threatened by genetic erosion. Collecting missions in Albania were conducted under the regional project collecting local germplasm during 2009 and 2010. The main goal was preservation of local landraces of maize. Over 69 localities were inventoried in the predicted regions. The extent of the inventoried territory of the entire region: at the northern at the village of Lëpushë (Kelmend) to at the southern at the village of Starje (Kolonje). The result of the collecting was 34 maize accessions collected (29 acc.on 2011 and 5 acc. on 2010). Regarding the status of the samples, they are mainly landraces, which are still grown by some farmers and used as a source of high quality animal and human food. Even more important is the specific use of its flour which is considered the best in cooking of traditional dishes. The next and very important steps will be to multiply, characterize and evaluate the collected samples. This material will be available for breeding programmer and for the sustainable use.