Recipient Organization
COLLEGE OF MENOMINEE NATION
PO BOX 179, N172 HWY 47/55
KESHENA,WI 54135
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The long-term goal of this project is to increase health and wellness among Indigenous people by increasing local food production and availability, specifically by renewing and supporting relationships with traditional types of flint and flour corn. CMN aims to achieve this goal with a collaborative effort across the northern states from the Great Lakes to Vermont in collaboration with Michigan State University, University of Vermont, Grand Valley State University, Little Traverse Bay Band, and other regional partners. We will evaluate the agronomic, flavor, and nutritional characteristics of flint corn varieties from the USDA collection. We will attempt to rescue the remaining seeds of Menominee Flint corn, and will assess the effects of a traditional corn medicine. We will also reach out to the public with participatory variety evaluations, videos, tours, social media posts, a corn club manual, presentations, a webinar, and a scientific paper about flint corn varieties and theirqualities.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
AIM One: Attempt to revive the Menominee Flint Corn Objective 1: Embryo rescue workshop with Sheila Blackman to rescue Menominee Flint (GVSU, CMN) Objective 2: Evaluate the effectiveness of Handsome Lake's corn medicine (CMN)AIM Two: Training and outreach on corn seed saving, management, and use Objective 3: Increase seeds for regional evaluation with CMN students and staff (CMN) Objective 4: Produce and post videos about corn seed saving and embryo rescue (CMN, Local NGOs and Agencies) Objective 5: Update a Corn Club Manual (CMN with regional input)AIM Three: Regional participatory evaluation of flint corn varieties Objective 6: Tribal College staff and students instructed on evaluation techniques (MSU, UVM) Objective 7: Nutrient analyses of heirloom varieties kept by seed savers in 2024 (CMN, MSU, UVM) Objective 8: Evaluations of USDA accessions in 2024 and 2025 (MSU, UVM, CMN) Objective 9: Webinar about Northern Flint corn history, diversity, and performance (MSU, UVM, CMN)AIM Four: Provision of seeds to interested community members across the region Objective 10: CMN provides seed of varieties we have increased to the public (CMN)
Project Methods
Seed Rescue - Sheila Blackman will instructus on proper sterilization of the old seeds, appropriate growth media, necessary equipment, etc. Surface sterilized seeds will imbibe and then embryos will be excised under sterile conditions to be cultured in vitro on a nutrient and energy laden growth medium. They will also be treated with antibiotics. We will culture these embryos in a growth chamber that we will build at CMN (Katagiri et al., 2015). Should any grow to form plants, they will be carefully transplanted, fenced away from animal depredation, and hand pollinated. Standard chain sibbing will be used to pollinate among the rescued plants. We hope to regenerate ears with fresh seeds from at least a small number of our remaining Menominee Flint corn seeds. If this takes place, we will increase these seeds for several years. A video about the process will be produced.For our regional trial, CMN will request seeds from the Plant Introduction Station in Ames, IA basedthe results of our variety screens in 2020 and 2021. We will increase thirty accessions of northern flint corn in a nursery at CMN in 2024 and onward. Thiscorn will be hand planted into standard 17.6' nursery plots planted in 30" rows. A chain-sibbing procedure will be used to hand pollinate the plants with the goal of 50-100 ears for each accession to maintain genetic diversity and to provide enough seeds for evaluation and later initial distributions. Standard bags will be used to collect and transfer pollen. In fall the ears will be harvested, dried in our greenhouse, and then shelled. Our experiences will be documented, and together with Ukwakhwa (an Oneida food culture NGO), Ancient Roots Homestead (a Mahican food culture NGO), and the Menominee DAFS, culturally relevant videos on traditional and more intensive seed saving will be produced to share with Indigenous corn growers and others.Photos from our seed increases and visits with local collaborators will be used as we update a Corn Club Manual. We will update the Montana Corn Club Manual from 1927 (Ogaard, 1927). Updates will be evaluated with partners from our local 4H and from Fort Berthold Extension in North Dakota before being released both with a Menominee focus and as a template for other 1994 and Tribal agriculture programs.Our updated Corn Club Manual will be released locally during the second year of the project, and we expect the template version to be requested for adaptation by at least ten other 1994 Land Grant colleges or Tribal agencies.Because of the opportunity offered by starting with some old seeds, in spring 2024 we will conduct a small, pilot examination of the corn medicine described by Handsome Lake and documented in Waugh (1916). This medicine is a tea made with the roots of Phragmites and other grasses. Seeds are soaked in this tea until they begin to sprout in order to strengthen the seedlings and improve their vigor. In the second season, we will take five groups of thirty-two seeds of the regenerated Menominee Flint corn (or another flint variety coming out of long storage from USDA) and treat each group in separate petri dishes with this tea made from locally harvested Phragmites. Control seeds will be treated in similar plates with plain water. Once germination and root elongation begin, the seeds will be carefully planted out in paired rows, one treated with tea and the other a control. Days to emergence will be recorded for each row. Color will be compared using a SPAD meter and plant height will be measured weekly until tasseling. Days to flowering will be recorded. We will use five separate batches of the tea and the control, and analyze the results using a paired T test.In the first year we will also reach out across seed saving networks, and seek one pound samples of seed of varieties that folks are currently keeping. These will be submitted to a commercial lab for near infra-red (NIR) evaluation of a broad list of nutritional parameters. Specific data will then be returned only to the participants, but the average and range of the nutritional quality parameters across the many varieties will be reported in our publication and webinar.Thirty experimental entrieswill be evaluated at each site:twenty at all sites, five of local interest, and five check varieties. Mother sites (CMN, MSU, UVM) will carry out replicated evaluations of the twenty accessions of northern flint corn varieties using standard 500th Acre plots, although UVM will use four row plots (Darby et al., 2022). LTBB will plant a daughter site with a single replicate of the accessions. The thirty entries will be randomized in each replicate using an Alpha design (resolvable incomplete block design) to help address spatial variation. All locations will plant four rows of border around the plots to reduce edge effects. MSU and UVM will plant with plot planters, but CMN and LTBBwill be planted with jab planters. Seeds will be planted to a depth of 2" to achieve a population of 32,000 plants per acre. Soils will be fertilized to meet 120 bu/A yield goals, and weeds will be controlled by various means (CMN and LTBB Farm will use mechanical weed control).The varieties will be evaluated for yield, days to maturity, lodging, and disease susceptibility. They will also be evaluated by the public during field events each fall, including teams from the Abenaki Nation in Vermont. After harvest, grain samples for each variety at each location will be formed into composite samples (twenty samples per location). One subsample will be submitted to MSU grain quality lab for grain quality analyses including protein, oil, starch, flour characteristics (RVA), and mycotoxins in year three. A second subsample will be ground into fine meal. Community members will be invited to a sensory evaluation where they will compare the smell of the meal, and the flavor of mush made with plain water, with guidance from UVM. Flavors will be rated on a one to five scale from bad to excellent. We will reach out to Indigenous Nations with connections to the seeds that we increase, and offer samples of refreshed seeds for rematriation purposes. We also aim to explore seed sales for varieties that are more appropriate for the wider public.We will record the number of successfully regenerated Menominee Flint corn seeds, especially looking at the number of embryos that grow vs. the number of plants successfully established and reproduced. This will provide information to guide future seed rescue efforts. A T-test with 5% probability will be used to compare means between seeds that are treated with Handsome Lake's seed medicine and controls. Significance will identify any parameters where an effect was observable, however only those that also show at least a 5% improvement over the performance of controls will be considered to be relevant for future consideration and investigation. ANOVA will be used to compare means of parameters measured in the variety evaluations (yield, lodging, health, grain quality, flavor, etc.), with a p value of 5% to indicate significant differences. Because it is an Alpha design with incomplete blocks, the variety means will be compared using a mixed model.Rebecca Edler will provide guidance to a CMN internal review team. Throughout the project, post-season and post-training discussions with participating faculty, staff, students, and community members (the entire research team) will include questions about skills and knowledge related to corn diversity, corn seed saving, variety evaluation, and cultural connections with corn. These parameters will be evaluated via talking circles and other Indigenous evaluation as we have learned from Nicky Bowman through our current project, Advancing Sustainable Food Systems Based on Ancient Knowledge.