On Reid's characterization of the ternary matroids

In this paper we prove a stronger version of a result of Ralph Reid characterizing the ternary matroids (i.e., the matroids representable over the field of 3 elements, GF(3)). In particular, we prove that a matroid is ternary if it has no seriesminor of type L_n for n ≥ 5 (n cells and n circuits, each of size n ? 1), and no series-minor of type $\text{L}{}_5{}^1$ (dual of L₅), BII (Fano matroid) or BI (dual of type BII). The proof we give does not assume Reid's theorem. Rather we give a direct proof based on the methods (notably the homotopy theorem) developed by Tutte for proving his characterization of regular matroids. Indeed, the steps involved in our proof closely parallel Tutte's proof, but carrying out these steps now becomes much more complicated.