Yield and growth duration of Maroon rice landraces measured in traditional settings

Rice, the most consumed cereal worldwide, has two domesticated species: Asian and African rice. Commercial cultivars, almost all Asian rice, are mostly selected for high yields. Traditional landraces are often selected for different traits, such as time to maturity or resistance against common stress factors, including bird attacks and poor soils. Maroons, descendants of enslaved Africans in Suriname and French Guiana, cultivate a rich diversity of rice landraces. They categorize landraces into short, medium, and long-maturation and maintain that fast-ripening crops with moderate yields facilitated their flight from enslavement, while once settled in a safe place, there was time for landraces with longer ripening periods and higher yields. Previous authors assumed that all Maroon landraces had low yields (700–1000 kg/ha), but their performance in traditional farming systems had never been investigated. We followed the growth and harvest of 28 Maroon rice landraces and two commercial cultivars in Maroon farmer fields, using traditional farming methods, at three locations. We show that, in farmer-managed fields, Maroon rice can yield 2600 kg/ha (average 1665 kg/ha), without any agrochemicals or machinery. Contrastingly, the commercial cultivars in Maroon farmer fields had a low yield (625–1205 kg/ha), partly due to bird predation. The maturation time varied between 110 and 183 days, but the three Maroon maturation categories showed significant overlap. Our study indicates that Maroon rice performance can only be fairly evaluated if measurements are taken in traditional Maroon farming systems, since this is the environment in which these landraces were originally selected.