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Maize is one of the main crops in Mexico due to the fact that it plays an important role in the diet of the Mexican, the main source of supply of this grain in the national market comes from around 2.6 million small producers who grow this cereal in areas smaller than five hectares and also represents one of the fundamental pillars for the food security of rural families who are generally in conditions of marginalization and poverty. The objective of this article is to characterize seasonal maize producers in 14 localities of the Municipality of Tierra Blanca, Veracruz state, which have high and medium marginalization rates. In this sense and to understand the productive management processes of the farmers, this research was carried out to understand the economic, social and productive aspects associated with maize yields under rainy season conditions in the spring - summer 2015 cycle, with the design of a questionnaire, information was collected through personalized interviews with the producers. The results showed that the producers have an average of 55 years of age with 5.5 years of schooling, each family has about 4 members, the average size of the plots is 11.28 hectares/producer, 94.3% uses improved seed and achieve a yield average of 2.8 t ha-1 with an average density of 31 948 plants ha-1 . The main animals that were found in the lots or backyards were: chickens, pigs, bovines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To define a procedure to evaluate amaranth grain expansion, three experiments were established. The first, to optimize the method of determination of humidity in grain in drying oven. The second to define the feasibility of modifying the moisture content to 12, 14 and 16%, due to the effect of water quantity and conditioning time. The third was to determine the volume of grain expansion by sample size (15 and 30 g) and humidity (10, 12, 14 and 16%). The treatment that worked best for the determination of grain moisture was 2 g of sample, 2 h of drying at 130 °C. It is possible to modify and adjust the grain moisture content by adding water. No effect on the moisture content was observed for the different conditioning times. The moisture content with which the highest trapping volume was obtained was 12 and 14%. There were no significant differences in the volume of grain trapping in samples of 15 and 30 g. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]