MAIZE LANDRACES OF KASHMIR: PRESENT STATUS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS S.Najeeb,A.G.Rather,M.A.Zarger,M.A.Ahangar,F.A.Sheikh,G.A.Parray,Z.A.Bhat,P.A.Sofi,Subash,C.Kashap, A.Ishfaq, Z.A.Dar, Mehfoza,H. And Z.A.Bardi S‐K. UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY OF KASHMIR (SKUAST‐K) MOUNTAIN RESEARCH CENTRE FOR FIELD CROPS,KHUDWANI,ANANTNAG,192102 Globally maize is the third most important crop. It is most important crop of United States and Maxico as primary centre of origin. From this centre crop spread to other non traditional areas and even to temperate belts of world and got established as a new crop. Mexico has the highest diversity of maize germplasm (Ortega, 2000), a large number and high percentage of campesinos, and the highest direct, per capita, maize consumption in the world(Warman, 2001; FIRA, 1998). In contrast to the situation in the United States, where hybrids were essentially introduced in the early 1930s and occupied virtually all maize farmland by 1945, the varied ecology in Mexico has greatly discouraged such universal adoption of hybrids (Frankel et al., 1995; Ortega, 2003a;Perales et al., 2003a). In Mexico, the proportion of maize land surface sown with landraces (80%)is far beyond both the average world value (48.5%) and the average for Latin America (55%;Morris, 2001), excluding Argentina, which now only plants hybrids. In developed countries it is primarily used as a poultry and animal feed, whileas in developing regions of the world maize grain is produced for human consumption, besides poultry and animal ration which get the secondary importance. Development of number of modern high yielding hybrids and synthetic in maize has replaced all the elite landraces and has posed a big threat in terms of loss of valuable genetic variability and potential genetic vulnerability. Genetic diversity created in the farmers , field over millennia complemented by genetic diversity present in the wild relatives of crop provide the raw material for improving crop productivity through plant breeding.These landrace populations are finite and vulnerable to losses due to development of new crop varieties, growing urbanization, natural hazards etc.These valuable resources contribute enormously towards the millennium Corresponding author:-najeeb_sofi@rediffmail.com Maize Genetics Cooperation Newsletter vol 86 2012 Najeeb et al Page 1 of 11 Please Note: Notes submitted to the Maize Genetics Cooperation Newsletter may be cited only with consent of authors.