QUINOA’S COELACANTH REVIVED. A TALE FROM PATAGONIA

COSTA TÁRTARA, S. M.; MANIFESTO, M. M.; CURTI, R.; BERTERO, H. D

Pullman, WA

Simposio; International Quinoa Research Symposium; 2013

Washington State University

A few years ago, we received two quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) seed samples form a Mapuche lady living in Cholila (42 28’ S, 71 27” W, 190 m.a.s.l.), Chubut province, Patagonia, Argentina. These seeds were reported as being cultivated locally since long ago. It immediately called our attention because its seeds (a critical taxonomic trait for Chenopodium in general and for quinoa in particular) didn’t look like quingua (Sea Level quinoa, cultivated by Chilean farmers a few tens of km across the mountains to the west) being white and small. We pose the hypothesis that these samples are a relict of a cultivated germplasm that extended widely into the Argentinean lowlands east of the Andes about which the last record dates back to the late XVIII century. We present evidence consistent with this hypothesis based on leaf morphology and seed traits (two critical taxonomic traits for Chenopodium in general and for quinoa in particular) together with molecular evidence using SSR markers and comparing these samples with quingua and Andean contemporary germplasm. The strongest similarity is with germplasm from the Argentinean highlands in Salta and Jujuy province, more than 2000 km and  20 degrees of latitude to the north. The alternative hypothesis, that these seeds are just the result of a recent introduction from the north is discussed on the light of knowledge about photoperiod responses during seed filling in Andean quinoa and discarded as unlikely. These results have strong implications far away from Patagonia: for archaeology (providing evidence about the itinerary of quinoa seeds exchanges along longitudinal corridors in the Andes) and for crop physiology and agronomy, offering a model germplasm to study physiological traits conferring adaptation to hot, long day environments far different from those in the postulated Andean original environment of quinoa.