The Verde Valley Archaeology Center’s Native American Heritage Garden has been transformed into a living laboratory and a place of collaboration, education and research, most recently through our corn study analysis and supply of agave pods to Desert Botanical Garden.
Rob Estrada, VVAC’s Ethnobotanist, and Walter Trevisan, VVAC volunteer and retired seed industry corn breeder, have been growing and evaluating 14 different native heritage species of corn in the dry farm section of the garden. This portion of the garden utilizes the traditional Hopi style farming method of relying mostly on rain and moisture with the addition of minimal irrigation supplement.
Trevisan has spent 52 years working with corn breeding and was the former Director of Research for Monsanto in Asia, where he opened their first research station in China. After discovering VVAC and its garden, Trevisan offered to volunteer and share his knowledge. He saw that Estrada and volunteers were planting a variety of blue corn in the garden, and contacted the USDA for accessions of Hopi corn that they had collected throughout the 1950s-70s.
Estrada, Trevisan, and the garden volunteers then planted 14 varieties of corn at the garden to see which adapt to the environment best, as well as to have more Native American varieties to display. Each variety was planted in its own row with the same fertilizing conditions, soil, irrigation and nutrients.
Out of the 14 varieties, the one that performed the best was an Arizona maize germplasm, a composite variety that was not a Hopi variety but was bred by the University of Arizona over a period of twenty years for arid climates with loamy soil. This composite was developed using Arizona’s Native American landraces and did well in production and withstood the high winds of August. Many corn plants were blown over, yet this variety had a sound root structure that kept the stalk upright.
Weather was an unpredictable variable and certain varieties may have outperformed others if the monsoon season had brought more rain.
The Hopi White #064 variety had the highest yield and a Pueblo variety of a red and white corn from New Mexico called Pueblo Flour Maize also adapted well.
With a total of 40 corn accessions to utilize, Estrada and Trevisan plan to pursue this project over three years. Next year, they will plant the three best performing varieties in the irrigated portion of the garden and repeat the experiment with the remaining varieties in the dry portion. After three years, they aim to keep the best performing varieties as a demonstration for the center and to provide this information to Hopi farmers if they want to try these varieties.
Estrada wants to grow the best varieties for their seed to use in a sustainable garden, similar to the Victory Gardens of both World Wars. After this study, VVAC’s garden crew will know what varieties are best suited to growing in this climate and can be grown in times of uncertainty.
Estrada emphasized that corn is a staple food and that about 30% of what we eat has a corn product in it. Corn is also present in energy sources such as ethanol. For the Puebloan people of the Verde Valley, corn was such a great food source because it could be stored in large quantities without refrigeration. If it is kept dry, it can last for many years. To get the nutrient out of dried corn, it must be ground, which is why metates are found across the Verde Valley. Estrada likened these tools to ancient food processors.
The corn varieties found at cavates in dwellings across the region are of a miniature variety about 3-4 inches in length, such as those found at Montezuma’s Castle. While the color of the kernels is unknown, they’re similar in size to candy corn or glass gem corn, with the present day kernels of those exhibiting neon-like colors.
“Native Americans are land based cultures living in harmony and unison with the Earth,” said Monica Buckle, VVAC’s Executive Director. “Our Native American Heritage Garden correlates to our museum, specifically with our Subsistence Gallery and the botanicals in The Dyck Cliff Dwelling Collection. It's imperative that we have this garden property and perpetuate time honored practices.”
The garden has also been busy growing four different endemic varieties of agave, none of which have flowered until this year. Three plants, two Agave delamateri and one Agave phillipsiana, have flowered, the first commonly known as Tonto Basin agave and the latter as Grand Canyon agave.
Andrew Salywon, Herbarium Curator and Research Botanist at Desert Botanical Garden and Wendy Hodgson, Herbarium Curator Emerita and Senior Researcher Botanist at Desert Botanical Garden, approached VVAC to harvest and use the agave pods to propagate. VVAC’s garden has been collecting those pods for DBG to propagate.
“We have a pre-existing agave quid study with the Desert Botanical Garden and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, so for DBG to approach Rob Estrada for the cultivation of these specimen agave pods is phenomenal.” said Buckle. “DBG has a seed vault, where VVAC's seeds will be stored in perpetuity in the event of serious environmental concerns. Our seeds could possibly be used to repopulate agave populations.”
The garden also aims to distribute native plants to propagate for use by the United States Forest Service.
This work is crucial for the conservation of native plants amidst environmental change, shifting the garden's role beyond a place of education and respite to significant research and stewardship as well.
The garden is now going into the dormant stage where Estrada and the volunteers will work on soil preparation to ensure nitrogen healthy levels.
“It’s outstanding how VVAC has been a magnet for extremely talented individuals that have had incredible professional careers, but are now in retirement and are making great contributions by giving back to the organization, like Derek Nadvornick, Donna Ulner, James Fleetwood, Robert Phelps, and Walter Trevisan” said Buckle. “If we did not have the volunteers, we would not be able to have the garden as a living laboratory. The volunteers' work under Rob Estrada's leadership has elevated the garden's function beyond the pleasant nature path and into a place of research."
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