Hidden crop diversity in Suriname

Maroons, descendants of enslaved Africans who escaped from plantations into the interior forests of Suriname, cultivate an astonishing number of rice varieties, most of which are Asian rice (Oryza sativa) and a few are African rice (O. glaberrima). We will trace the geographic origin of Maroon rice by characterizing their genomic diversity and compare them to modern and historic rice accessions and crop wild relatives from the Guianas, West Africa, Asia and the US, by means of whole-genome sequencing. 

Principal investigator: Tinde van Andel