Reuniting the three sisters: Enhancing Community and Soil Health in Native American Communities

REUNITING THE THREE SISTERS: ENHANCING COMMUNITY AND SOIL HEALTH IN NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES

Sponsoring Institution

National Institute of Food and Agriculture

Project Status

TERMINATED

Funding Source

AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT

Reporting Frequency

Annual

Accession No.

1019813

Grant No.

2019-68008-29913

Project No.

IOWW-2018-09109

Proposal No.

2018-09109

Multistate No.

(N/A)

Program Code

A1701

Project Start Date

Sep 1, 2019

Project End Date

Aug 31, 2023

Grant Year

2019

Project Director
Hill, C. G.

Recipient Organization
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
2229 Lincoln Way
AMES,IA 50011

Performing Department
Anthropology

Non Technical Summary
Many Native American nations used Three Sisters intercropping practices, based on knowledge of three cultivated crops (corn, beans, and squash) taking care of one another when planted together. Three Sisters intercropping likely enhanced soil health, but little research has examined why this might be true. The reasons may include the same biophysical mechanisms in modern intercropping that result in nutrient cycling, soil biological activity, and accumulation of soil organic matter. The long-term goal of this project is to improve nutrition, environmental sustainability, and soil health by supporting Native American stakeholder efforts to reinvigorate Three Sisters intercropping practice. This addresses three program area priorities: (1) Food safety, nutrition, and health; (2) Bioenergy, natural resources, and environment; and (3) Agriculture economics and rural communities. Our objectives are to (1) Assess importance of Three Sisters intercropping practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized Three Sisters intercropping practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics; and (2) determine, document, and disseminate the benefits of Three Sisters intercropping to soil health. This project will use ethnography, surveys, and interviews to demonstrate the historical and sociocultural importance of Three Sisters intercropping for Native communities and advance their food security programs. Researchers and Native growers will work together in a citizen science project that combines traditional soil health measurements and a novel and inexpensive soil health indicator to help determine the effect of intercropping on soil health. Understanding the basic agronomic mechanisms of how Three Sisters intercropping works could also aid efforts to diversify modern monocultural agroecosystems.

Animal Health Component

Research Effort Categories

Basic

60%

Applied

35%

Developmental

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
102	0110	1060	25%
205	0199	3030	25%
724	5010	1010	25%
805	6099	3000	25%

Knowledge Area
724 - Healthy Lifestyle; 805 - Community Institutions, Health, and Social Services; 102 - Soil, Plant, Water, Nutrient Relationships; 205 - Plant Management Systems;

Subject Of Investigation
0110 - Soil; 0199 - Soil and land, general; 6099 - People and communities, general/other; 5010 - Food;

Field Of Science
3000 - Anthropology; 1060 - Biology (whole systems); 1010 - Nutrition and metabolism; 3030 - Information and communication;

Keywords

Goals / Objectives
Many Native American tribes have a legend associated with the "Three Sisters" intercropping practice, with the central idea that three different cultivated crops are inseparable because they take care of one another when planted together (Erdrich, 2013; LaDuke, 2005). The crops referred to as the Three Sisters in these beliefs are maize or corn (Zea mays), common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), and squash (Cucurbita moschata). When planted together, the Three Sisters formed the Americas' original intercropping system and likely contributed to soil health in Native knowledge systems. Soil health, as defined by the Natural Resource and Conservation Service, is "the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans. This definition speaks to the importance of managing soils so they are sustainable to future generations" (NRCS). Even though the term "soil health" is now in vogue, Native American intercropping might have pursued this goal for generations.While a rich body of practical knowledge and the oral tradition of the Three Sisters intercropping (3SI) practice exist within the American Indian community, very little academic scholarship has been published on this topic and its historical, cultural, and nutritional importance (Landon, 2008; Mt. Pleasant, 2006, 2010, 2016; Sauer, 1952). Some studies have examined 3SI in the northeast, but there is almost no research on the practice in the Midwest and even less on the current revitalization efforts of Native communities today (Trigger, 1969; Lewandowski, 1987; Mt. Pleasant, 2006, 2010, 2016). Further, little research has examined why the practice has been so successful in improving yields or enhancing soil health (Mt. Pleasant, 2006, 2010, 2016; Zhang, 2014), although the reasons for its success may be rooted in the same biophysical mechanisms that make modern intercropping so successful in efficiently cycling nutrients (Whitmore, 2007; Zhang, 2003) and increasing indicators of soil health like soil biological activity and accumulation of soil organic matter (Cong, 2015; Suman, 2006; Watson, 2002).With these historical traditions and modern observed benefits as a foundation, we propose to explore the cultural and agronomic underpinnings of 3SI in collaboration with Native American growers so that these practices are once again emphasized (Figure 1). Our long-term goals are to (1) improve nutrition, environmental sustainability, and soil health by supporting Native American efforts to reinvigorate the practice, and (2) apply the results learned to the eventual improvement of conventional, industrialized agriculture that relies heavily on monoculture cropping systems. Our supporting objectives, which will be achieved in this project and will lead to outcomes that can be implemented within two years of project completion, are to (1) Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics; and (2) Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI intercropping to crop production and soil health.These objectives will be achieved through a truly multidisciplinary approach and include an engaged extension effort to revitalize and understand the biophysical underpinnings of 3SI to several Native American communities in the Midwest. The narratives from the Three Sisters legends frequently emphasize the profound importance of these plants, naming them not only as relatives of each other, but of the tribal nation as well; maize is sometimes referred to as the "mother" of the people (Will and Hyde, 1964; Erdrich, 2013; LaDuke, 2005; Salmon, 2012). The beans contribute nitrogen as legumes; the squash provides shady ground cover to prevent weeds while retaining soil moisture, as well as spiny vines that deter herbivores; and the maize has tall stalks for the beans to climb and gathers moisture at night that drips down to nurture the other plants. Should one plant abandon her sisters, they all suffer. Indigenous knowledge reminds us that these sisters are embedded in a wider ecosystem--deer, prairie dogs, humans, the sun, and the moon all have roles to play in the well-being of the plants (Erdrich, 2013).American Indian agriculturalists depended on these crops for their survival. As a result, they developed highly sophisticated agricultural knowledge. While many selected highly fertile riverine soils in which to grow the Three Sisters because they were richer and easier to work, they also used both intercropping and multiple cropping to grow in lower fertility soils (Hurt, 1987; Hurt, 2002; Minnis, 2003). These practices resulted in what were high yields at the time, and without fertilizer (Hurt, 1987; Hurt, 2002; Minnis, 2003; Struever, 1971). Native agriculturalists dried what they harvested and stored the surplus to feed themselves. An average crop would feed the community for several years (Hurt, 1987; Will and Hyde, 1964; Wilson, 1917) and supported trade with non-agricultural peoples and later European traders and settlers (Jablow, 1950). These plants, and the growing practices connected to them, were at the center of American Indian cultural and religious practices.By the turn of the nineteenth century, 3SI had almost been eradicated from Native communities. Now, a few Native people are again practicing 3SI as a part of revitalizing their cultural practices, rejuvenating their economies, and improving their health (Cajete, 1999; LaDuke, 2005). Many Native American communities have also recently established small farms with the goal of producing easily accessible, healthy food while incorporating culturally appropriate Indigenous agronomic practices (including 3SI). The later form of revitalization often does not incorporate 3SI - Could simple, on-farm trials of 3SI (looking at effects of 'Reuniting the Three Sisters') be used as a citizen science and extension tool help to revitalize this practice and deepen our understanding of intercropping? We propose to find out.Under our broader goal of exploring the cultural and agronomic underpinnings of 3SI and of engaging stakeholders in citizen science through participation in soil health measurements, this project identifies two main objectives:Objectives:Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics.Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI to crop production and soil health.Stakeholder involvement: To encourage stakeholder participation, we contacted six different Native American communities that practice 3SI. Eleven American Indian farmer collaborators from four different communities have confirmed their participation. An additional two have expressed interest and are moving through the Tribal Council permission processes in their communities to gain confirmation of participation. Directors of these community agricultural projects have expressed concerns about soil fertility and health, and, lacking extension help, have indicated that this project will fill a need in their communities. In group consultation with the PI and Co-PIs, stakeholders will agree on a set of intercropping practices to be carried out in their home communities. They will participate in interviews, identify participants, and distribute surveys. Our plan is to survey and interview participating stakeholders on soil health before and after participating in the entire project to further integrate both objectives.

Project Methods
Our approach is to learn the reasons for the practice of 3SI historically and today, as well as the barriers that Native peoples have faced in maintaining this practice. We will consider the decision-making process involved, asking critical questions related to the sociocultural, historical, and agronomic reasons behind 3SI. We will use ethnography, surveys, and formal and informal interviews to demonstrate the historical and sociocultural importance of 3SI for Native communities and advance their food security programs. Ethnography will involve one visit to each community each year and two visits in the final year, as well as email and phone conversations with participants. The primary technique of ethnography requires participant observation. By participating in activities with the community, the researcher can develop a deeper knowledge of a cultural event or action than by simply interviewing participants. For this project, we will travel to communities during planting season one year, once later in the summer another year, and then in the fall during harvest to be able to participate in different aspects of the 3SI practice.Student research assistants and PIs will conduct informal interviews while visiting gardeners to introduce and demonstrate the use of the soil test. These conversations will be recorded with permission, either on a digital audio recorder or as notes in a notebook by the PI, Dr. Gish Hill, the social science researcher. We will also distribute two surveys, one early in the study after we have gained the trust of the participants in each community, and the other in the fall of the final year. The first will gather data about the successes and barriers faced by gardeners in growing 3SI and the perceived needs growers have related to improving their practices. The second will provide participants the opportunity to reflect on the process of soil health testing and discuss plans for the future.To evaluate the available food environment with a focus on the Three Sisters and other traditional foods, Dr. Winham and a trained undergraduate researcher will assess retail food stores, farmers' markets, and food pantries on and within a 20-mile radius of a Nation. We will initially use the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Stores (NEMS-S) to guide development of an ethnic-specific modification based on two of our partner Nations (Meskwakie, IA; Omaha, NE) (Glanz, 2007; Willard, 2018; Jernigan, 2011). Price comparisons for standard staples from the NEMS-S and traditional foods will be compared across locations. We have previously developed a Latino ethnic store instrument for the Midwest and will apply our experiences from that (Baier, 2017). Our analysis will include relevant access details such as distance to stores from representative community clusters, food costs, and food quality, e.g., freshness of produce. As we build rapport with community members, we will directly explore qualitative views toward food insecurity and food access. In our first two years, our assessments will be "noninvasive" and will focus on the built environment. We will utilize publicly available statistics on food insecurity, food deserts, and epidemiological statistics for tribal member health. Our food environment findings on accessibility, availability, and affordability of healthy foods will be reported to the community as the research evolves, to invite input on our research plan.After pilot testing and formative evaluation, the nutrition environment investigation will commence at the other partner sites in Years 2 and 3.The ethnographic research will result in survey data, hours of digital recordings of interviews, and field notes describing the historical and cultural importance of 3SI, the agricultural techniques people use, the successes and barriers they encounter to the practice, concerns around soil health, the impacts of soil testing, and how the revitalization of 3SI has impacted the larger community. The interview recordings will be transcribed and then coded by hand and entered into NVivo, software that organizes and analyzes unstructured data such as interviews. Hand coding and NVivo will classify, sort, and arrange the data, look for themes, examine relationships between the data, and identify trends.The nutrition environment measures will generate descriptive statistics on the frequencies of food accessibility, availability, and affordability within reservation food outlets and those in a 20-mile vicinity of boundaries in rural areas. The original NEMS-S rating will be compared with that of the Native American NEMS-S using paired t-tests to measure the difference in scores for each store. These findings will quantify the presence or absence of food deserts, traditional foods, and pricing differentials for healthy foods by market source.We will use a combination of traditional soil health measurements and a novel, inexpensive, yet scientifically robust soil health indicator that will engage Native communities in citizen science. The combination of these two approaches will help us determine the effect of intercropping on soil health. Furthermore, by engaging Native communities in setting up on-farm trials and in-soil data collection, we hope to encourage and engage cultural links to traditional agriculture practices and promote sustainability.For the on-farm trials, we will use an experimental design used to directly test the effects of 3SI (Figure 2). Seed funding already acquired will allow us to start this experiment in spring of 2019. We will use a replicated randomized complete block design with each block replicated four times at the ISU farm. Treatments will include monoculture maize, monoculture beans, monoculture squash, and maize/beans/squash planted in 3SI (Figure 2). Each plot will be 6 m (20') x 6 m. We will take advice on varieties used at the ISU 3SI plot from Dr. Keen in collaboration with other stakeholder communities. We will allow more flexibility with collaborator farms/gardens and give them the option of fitting this experimental design into their existing practices, including size, number of replicates, and varieties used by their communities.Each soil sample will be collected prior to planting and will be a composite of 5 to 10 soil cores across the plot collected by soil probes at 0-15 cm depths. These soils will be analyzed for a suite of physical, chemical, and biological soil health measurements (Table 2). Some of this data will have to be collected in the field in addition to the core samples because they are in situ measurements or they require a larger sample size (e.g., infiltration, compaction, and bulk density). Baseline Physical and Chemical soil health indicators will be made at the beginning of each field trial. Our intent is to measure these again at the end of the three-year project, but also continue funding for these farmer-led trials in order to see long-term effects of 3SI on these indicators of soil health. The biological indicators of soil health (microbial biomass, potential nitrogen mineralization, etc.) are more sensitive to management, and they will likely show a response to 3SI before other soil health indicators and will be measured once per year.The soil and crop data will first be tested for assumption of normality and heterogeneity of variances. If not meeting these assumptions, we will transform the data. Finally, the data will be tested for significant differences between monoculture averages and 3SI (Figure 2, n = 5) using ANOVA and least squares means in SAS (SAS Institute, Inc.; Raleigh, NC). Due to the high variability expected among sites and management factors, we will use a less stringent alpha value set at 0.05. The data may need to be standardized to the soil type (and region), or we may also need to use multivariate statistics to deal with this large variability.

Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:We have had several target audiences. Our first target audience was the Native American gardeners and farmers on the Omaha, Santee Sioux, Oneida, and Menominee reservations and Native gardeners in Sioux City and Minneapolis/ St. Paul. We have reached them through outreach into their communities, attendance at an advisory board meeting held at Iowa State University, virtual workshops, and by distributing extension materials and videos. We have also built networks --using social media, specifically Facebook--between Native gardeners within their home communities and across tribal nations to share knowledge and resources, like seeds. Our second target audience was graduate and undergraduate students at Iowa State. These students attended advisory board meetings, worked in our Three Sisters garden plots, and helped with lab research.Our third target audience was sustainable agriculture researchers and practitioners. We reached them by presenting a poster at MOSES (Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Services Conference), a paper at the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Symposium at Northern Michigan University, and the NIFA CARE project director's meeting. We have also reached our target audience of sustainable agriculture researchers and practitioners throughtwo masters theses, nine conference papers and journal articles (which included a peer-reviewedarticle in Agriculture and Human Values)three farm reports, and multiple event presentations.? Finally, we reached the gardening public in central Iowa with a Field Day at the ISU Horticulture Research Station, two presentations at Living History Farms, and a presentation to second graders at a Des Moines Public School. We also reached a wider gardening public by presenting to the Penn State Master Gardeners. We reached a much wider audience via the publication of seven interviews for the popular press, including articles forIowa Farmer Today, Midstory Podcast, Scientific American,The West magazine, and USA Today. Changes/Problems:The effects of COVID on the project have been long lasting. In the growing season of 2022 we were still struggling to recruit Native growers willing to grow research plots because of the need for space to produce food for their communities. Travel had become easier and we were able to present many workshops and conduct ethnography in all five communities, but recruitment for both was still challenging because of the caution people continued to take. We also continued to deal with challenges in the ISU research plots. The 2021 growing season struggled with smut production on the corn and bacterial disease on the squash. Since both are soil borne, the challenges continued for the 2022 growing season. To address these challenges, we changed maize and squash varieties in the research garden plots. Since we still had the rematriation responsibilities, we expanded our plot in hopes that the distance would be enough to stop the spread. While we noticed less smut on the corn for the 2022 growing season, we still lost a large percentage of squash to the bacterial disease. We also dealt with challenges on the nutritional branch of the project. The original goal was to fully develop an adapted NEMS store assessment tool for grocery stores on or near reservations. This was set back due to COVID back in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, preliminary store assessments were conducted, but due to the short turnaround process we had and limited travel availability, the only community stores assessed were in Nebraska. Despite this challenge, we were still able to collect useful data and create an updated NEM store assessment tool for these particular communities. Additionally, this season the team made a conscious decision to increase workshop engagement and participation by preparing more hands-on demonstrations and activities. This included providing materials for workshops that folks could take back to their home gardens and actively practice what was learned at the workshops. These activities were described in the previous workshop products section. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?This project has presented a plethora of career development and community-building opportunities. Overall, the project has resulted in two masters theses, nine conference papers and journal articles, three farm reports, multiple event presentations, and seven publications for the popular press. Some especially important professional development opportunities have included attending the Annual Great Lakes Indigenous Farming Conference, theFood Sovereignty Symposium & Festival, and theSantee Sioux Nation Pow Wow.On March 3rd - 6th 2022, graduate students and staff attended the 19th Annual Great Lakes Indigenous Farming Conference in Callaway, Minnesota. They had the opportunity to listen to Winona LaDuke, Elizabeth Hoover, and many other great professionals about food, energy, economics, and land sovereignty. In addition, they attended workshops related to Tibial Food, Agricultural Business, Indigenous Sciences, and Innovation. The attendees were able to network and meet folks from across the United States to discuss and explore new ideas and perspectives.Christina Gish Hill attended the Food Sovereignty Symposium & Festival on May 20th at the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and Northern Michigan University. The conference focused on creating spaces for presenters to share experiences and explorations related to food justice, Indigenous agriculture in North America, and Indigenous sovereignty. Ethnographic interviews and conversations have alsoled PIs, students, and staff to be invited to community Pow Wows. This past summer, we attended the Santee Sioux Nation Pow Wow on July 17th in Santee, Nebraska where we experienced the grand entrance of local community leaders and honorees. The various celebrations we witnessed during these Pow Wowshelped our students learn about culturally appropriate behavior and cultural diversity. We have also reached graduate and undergraduate students at Iowa State who have attended advisory board meetings, worked in our Three Sisters garden plots, and helped with lab research. During the 2022 growing season, the project took on four undergraduate students from Iowa State University. These students were trained in Indigenous seed varietiesand appropriate seed preservation and care methodologies. Some of the skills they acquired included how to createmounds for planting, direct-seed aThree Sisters intercropped system, transplantcorn from greenhouse seedlings, developa pollination garden plan, and hand-pollinatecorn and squash plants. The students were also trained in plant and soil health data collection protocols, such as SPAD, soil temperature and moisture, and sampling. Students also received experience in crop scouting for smut and squash bore. Lastly, students had the opportunity to answer questions about their experiences during various Three Sisters events. Additionally, the project hosted an intern from the Iowa State University George Washington Carver Internship Program. This second-year student from Kirkland Community College worked in the McDaniel Lab and with theThree Sisters project for eight weeks. He collected the weekly SPAD, soil temperature, and moisture data, then processed and graphed his findings. However, due to the length of the internship, his final 5-minute oral presentation and poster discussed only the 2021 growing season data. He presented his work "Three Sisters Intercropping (Maize, Beans, and Squash) effect on Soil Microclimate and Plant Health '' to the GWC Internship Program and guests. During his time with the project, he learned some R programming data visualization language, advanced excel functions, and gained experience withpublic speaking. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results of this project have been dissiminated to communities of interest by promoting citizen science, relationship building, and having an extension presence in the Native American and surrounding communities in order to determine the role of the 3SI and promote its benefits. Throughout the project, we have reached our target audience of Native American gardeners and farmers on the Omaha, Santee Sioux, Oneida, and Menominee reservations and Native gardeners in Sioux City and Minneapolis/ St. Paul through outreach into their communities, attendance at an advisory board meeting held at Iowa State University, virtual workshops, in-person workshops, and by distributing extension materials and videos. The workshops and field days we conducted shared information with Native growers and local growers about organic horticulture, soil health, and Three Sisters agriculture. Two of our graduate students were especially vital in expanding our outreach scope. As part of his extension work, Derrick Kapayou took soil samples of potential participants' gardens, providing information about growing techniques specific to each garden during our ethnographic visits, and taught Native farmers and gardeners to read the soil test results for their gardens once they were processed. Extension work conducted by Emma Herrighty involved learning about the protocols for saving seeds and then working with Native collaborators to rematriate the seed grown at ISU to Native growers. In addition to the rematriated seeds, we returned information about the seed and how it was handled. We communicated often with our interviewees and sent them transcripts of their interviews for feedback. We sent emails with garden assessment results and soil test results and made phone calls to explain the results of those tests. Finally, results from the nutrition assessments were disseminated to the communities of interest as an infographic summarizing what healthy foods and traditional foods are available to them. Information regarding individual stores remained confidential, but communities were provided information on items available and the average price in a given radius. We have also built networks --using social media, specifically Facebook--between Native gardeners within their home communities and across tribal nations to share knowledge and resources, like seeds. These networks will continue to grow beyond the bounds of this project, and Native growers will continue to reap the benefits of this disseminated knowledge. As we conclude the project, we are providing "community binders" to all native participants. These binders include transcripts of their interviews, the results of the project, and all extension materials distributed throughout the project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Ethnography: Under the ethnography portion of objective one, led by Dr. Gish Hill, we conducted ethnographic research in all five communities and conducted many in-person interviews. Over the three years of the project, Dr. Christina Gish-Hill and masters student Emma Herrighty,and Derrick Kapayouconducted ethnographic research in all five participating communities and completed a total of thirty-two interviews, the majority of which were in-person. The results of these interviews are currently being analyzed for future publication. Gish-Hillconnected with growers who had plotsand encouragedthem to continue to grow. We had four Native growers who grew plots in the summer of 2022. Gish-Hillbuiltrapport through spending time in communities where shehelpedto weed and harvest, cooked with Native growers, and tookbaseline soil samples for potential participants. The recordings of these interviews will be incredibly useful to those seeking to understand the importance of the Three Sisters for Native gardeners and Native Communities. They will also assist in the preservation and dissemination of invaluable cultural knowledge. What is more, the relationships we have cultivated through our ethnographic research will continue to present opportunities for further research and community building beyond this project's scope. In regard to the results of this ethnographic research, we found that the Three Sisters and seed rematriation is vital to the food ways and cultural integrity of Native peoples. The specifics of each gardeners' experience are nuanced will be expanded upon in multiple publications that are currently under development Nutrition: Under the nutrition assessment portion of objective oneled by Dr. Donna Winham, we created two nutrition environment measures for this project: the nutritional store assessment data and the nutritional store assessment tool redesigned for grocery stores on or near reservations.The store assessments involved utilizing the already established Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Stores (NEMS-S) and creating a new NEMS-S document focused on Native American foods. Both tools were used to assess the presence and accessibility of various food items that were deemed healthy and/or traditional for native peoples of the Midwest. For this project, "accessibility" referred to the quality and price of the items and the distance to the store.We assessed the nutrition environment in 11 grocery stores near two of the collaborating Nations.Short interviews were also conducted at stores with managers and employees who agreed to participate. The interview questions primarily focused on where stores get their food from, whether they carry any locally produced food items, whether they have Native American customers shop in their store, and what their customers may purchase. We found that all stores had the availability of 6 of the 11 measures (lower fat milk, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, diet soda and 100% juice, whole grain bread, and healthier cereals). Few stores had the 3 measures of lean ground meat, lower fat hot dogs, or lower fat frozen dinners. Most stores had baked chips and lower-fat baked goods available. The NEMS-S scores, food availability, and price comparisons were not significantly different between the 8 regular markets and the 2 Walmart stores. The presence of the Three Sisters crops (beans, corn, squash), wild rice, cornmeal, and maple syrup was noted. These historical or traditional foods were mentioned as culturally important by the Advisory Board members and in the ethnographic interviews. With the exception of one store, at least one variety of dry beans was available. All stores carried an assortment of plain canned beans and baked beans. Fresh ears of corn were available, although heirloom types were not present. Only four stores stocked fresh squash (butternut and acorn). Eight stores stocked corn meal, six carried wild rice, but only four had real maple syrup available. Despite the proximity of the retail markets surveyed, few historic or traditional foods were available. The updated Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) food packages contain more culturally appropriate foods such as bison, wild rice, walleye, and cornmeal. It is possible that Native clientele are not looking for indigenous foods at the markets included in this study. Food preferences and shopping patterns of the Native populations in the store service areas are unknown. The information gathered from the store assessments can inform those in the Native American communities of the food options available to improve their nutrition. In addition, due to the limited radius of stores that were assessed, this information can be presented to and used by these communities to shop more locally, thus potentially influencing the local economy. Many of the store staff interviewed indicated that they do not carry much local food, if any, and even fewer carry any product produced by the Native American communities. However, many indicated they would like to carry more locally produced items, including those produced by the Native American communities. An increase in locally or Native American-produced items in stores would potentially improve the rural communities' economy. Soil Health: The soil health oportion of bjective two was led by Dr. McDaniel. To determine if planting the Three Sisters (maize, beans, and squash) together resulted in increased soil health, we measured several physical, biological, and chemical indicators of soil health in the Three Sisters Garden and compared them to the monocrop soil. We measured these chemical indicators over three growing seasons at a randomized, complete block design experiment near Ames, Iowa, USA. At the end of the growing season, we sampled and determined salt-extractable Nitrate and found that intercropping the Three Sisters had consistent effects on soil nitrate, decreasing it relative to sole cropping and increasing biological activity (as assessed by CO2 Burst). Soil respiration was consistently marginally higher in the 3SI treatment, approximately 6%, even though the decomposition rates were lower in the 3SI. Other effects were inconsistent, i.e. only occurred in one year, and may be explained by either the varieties used for the year or weather conditions. It is clear that intercropping with maize, beans and squash altered soil biology and fertility. Future research should explore using stable isotope tracers to study flow of nutrients between the intercropped sisters and soil.

Publications

Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Article for the Popular Press. Gish-Hill, Christina. Returning the Three Sisters Corn, Beans and Squash to Native American Farms Nourishes People, Land and Cultures, The Conversation: Academic Rigor, Journalistic Flair, November 20, 2020. https://theconversation.com/returning-the-three-sisters-corn-beans-and-squash-to-native-american-farms-nourishes-people-land-and-cultures-149230.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Article for the Popular Press Kapayou, Derrick; Christina Gish-Hill, PhD; Marshall McDaniel, PhD. Can Traditional Ecological Knowledge be Integrated into Modern Cropping systems to Enhance Soil and Water Conservation? Iowa Water Center, November 25, 2020, https://www.iowawatercenter.org/can-traditional-ecological-knowledge-be-integrated-into-modern-cropping-systems-to-enhance-soil-and-water-conservation/.
Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Kapayou, D.G., Herrighty, E.M., Hill, C.G. et al. Reuniting the Three Sisters: collaborative science with Native growers to improve soil and community health. Agric Hum Values 40, 6582 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-022-10336-z
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Kapayou, Derrick; Christina Gish-Hill; Marshall McDaniel. 2023. Reuniting the Three Sisters: Cultural and Agronomic Underpinnings of Corn, Squash, and Bean Intercropping. Poster presented at Marbleseed (formerly MOSES) Organic Farming Conference, La Crosse, WI. February 23-25, 2023: Iowa State University
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Kapayou, Derrick; Christina Gish-Hill. 2023. Lessons from Indigenous Farming: How the Three Sisters Improves Communities From the Ground Up. Presentation presented at The North Central Region Water Networks Speed Networking Webinar Series: Indigenous Perspectives on Water and Conservation, Madison, WI, 17th, February, 2021. The Current, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb9od2NnHz8
Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Herrighty, Emma. Seed Sovereignty, Rematriation, and Three Sisters Intercropping in Native American Communities. 2022.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Dr. Christina Gish Hill and Emma Herrighty (M.S., M.A) attended the Royal Anthropological Institute: Anthropology and Conservation Virtual Conference during the 25th 29th of October 2021. The main objective of this conference is to recognize and provide a space for conservation discussion can be held, with Indigenous Peoples at the forefront. Dr. Gish Hill and Emma Herrighty were lead convenors for the panel: Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the American Corn Belt: Resurgence in the Face of Disruption. https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/rai2021/p/10308
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Gish-Hill, Christina. 2021. Appropriation of Land and Seeds: Settler Colonialism's Impact on Native American Agriculturalists in the Midwestern U.S. Presentation at RAI 2021: Anthropology and Conservation, London, England, 27th October, 2021. https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/rai2021/paper/62415
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Herrighty, Emma. 2021. Seeing the Seeds Home: Increasing Opportunities and Responsibilities of Non-Native Seed-Holding Institutions within the Seed Rematriation Movement. Presentation at RAI 2021: Anthropology and Conservation, London, England, 27th October, 2021. https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/rai2021/paper/62584.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Three Sisters Reunited: Gardening as Indigenous Resurgence, Lightning Talk, Iowa State University Research Days, Iowa State University, IA. Date: April 5, 2021.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Presented two programs about the research on August 28th, 2021: Indigenous Foodways of the Midwest: The Impacts of Contact and the Importance of Revitalization, Indigenous Iowans Day, Living History Farms, Des Moines, IA. Three Sisters Agriculture Amongst Indigenous Peoples in Iowa, Indigenous Iowans Day, Living History Farms, Des Moines, IA.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Herrighty, Emma. Reuniting the Three Sisters: Native American Intercropping and Plant Health. Presented at Marbleseed (formerly MOSES) Organic Farming Conference, La Crosse, WI. February 23-25, 2023. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://projects.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/Herrighty-MOSES-Abstract.pdf
Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2021 Citation: Project Presentation for Interested Parties, plus soil results. Titled "Reuniting the three sisters: enhancing community and soil health in Native American communities."
Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2021 Citation: Powerpoint Presentation for Master Gardeners at Penn State, PA.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Article for the Popular Press Lucht, Gene. Three sisters offer lessons of sustainability today, Iowa Farmer Today, April 23, 2022, updated May 4, 2022, https://agupdate.com/iowafarmertoday/news/crop/three-sisters-offer-lessons-of-sustainability-today/article_41d97b84-c0db-11ec-89b4-83459aae2178.html
Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: This is a Facebook Page for the Three Sisters Project that posts updates about the ISU three sisters garden, as well as workshop and field day information. Department of World Languages and Cultures, ISU. Three Sisters Gardening Project. Facebook, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/groups/363743951258912/members.
Type: Websites Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: An informational webpage and blog about the three sisters project. Gish-Hill, Christina; Ajay Nair; Marshall McDaniel; Donna Winham; Derrick Kapayou; Emma Herrighty; Susana Cabrera-Mari; Kristine Micheletti; Valeria Cano Camacho. Three Sisters Project, Three Sisters Project, Iowa State University. Updated 2023, https://threesistersproject.language.iastate.edu/
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Article for the Popular Press Gehr, Danielle. Native Intercropping of 'Three Sisters' Corn, Beans and Squash benefits Land, ISU Research Shows, Ames Tribune, January 3rd, 2021, https://www.amestrib.com/story/news/2021/01/03/isu-research-shows-how-native-american-indiginous-agriculture-benefits-soil-ecosystem/4007651001/.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Interview of Christina Gish-Hill for XRAY FM Radio. XRAY in the Morning - Tuesday, December 8th, 2020. XRAY FM, December 8, 2020, https://xray.fm/broadcasts/37393.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Interview of Christina Gish-Hill for Wort FM Radio. 8 OClock Buzz, Recovering Indigenous Agriculture, Wort 89.9 FM: Community Radio, Madison, WI, November 23, 2020, https://www.wortfm.org/recovering-indigenous-agriculture/#.X8MLxaNjttg.twitter.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Article for the Popular Press. An interview of Christina Gish Hill published by Stanford University's magazine & The West. McNulty, Anna, Native agriculture never went away. Now it is on the rise. And the West by Stanford University, January 21, 2022, https://andthewest.stanford.edu/2022/native-agriculture-never-went-away-now-it-is-on-the-rise/.
Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Kapayou, Derrick. Cultural connections to soil and agronomic impacts of the maize, bean, squash polyculture methods in 5 Indigenous Communities of the Upper US Midwest. Iowa State University, 2022.
Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Extension Materials: A plot layout guide to be used by the ISU team and the collaborator Native communities. This guide described in detail how one could go about laying out a (3-SIP) research block in their own community.
Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2020 Citation: Extension Materials: Seed Placement and Time to Plant Guide. This guide included detailed schemas and measurements for gardens incorporating garden mounds.
Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2021 Citation: Extension Materials: DIY Soil Test Kit Manual. It provides step by step instruction of several simple, scientifically robust tests that a grower can do at home with simple to attain tools.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Extension Materials: Herrighty, Emma. How to Take a Soil Sample. Posted January 21, 2021; Ames, IA, Youtube, 3:07. https://threesistersproject.language.iastate.edu/learn/
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Extension Materials: Kapayou, Derrick. Six DIY How to Test Soil Health Videos. May 16, 2021, Youtube, https://threesistersproject.language.iastate.edu/learn/.
Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2021 Citation: Extension Materials: Three Sisters Lesson Plan by Christina Gish-Hill
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: 2021 Farm Report on ISU Three Sisters Research Plot Herrighty, Emma: Derrick Kapayou, Ajay Nair, Christina Gish-Hill, Marshall McDaniel, Donna Winham. Reuniting the Three Sisters: Native American Intercropping and Soil Health. Ames IA: Iowa State University, 2021. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://projects.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/2021-Farm-Report.pdf.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: 2022 Farm Report for ISU Three Sisters Research Plot. Herrighty, Emma; Valeria Cano Camacho; Ajay Nair; Christina Gish-Hill; Marshall McDaniel. Reuniting the Three Sisters: Native American Intercropping, Seed Saving, and Plant Health. Ames, IA: Iowa State University, 2022, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://projects.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/3SI_2022_Farm_Report_final79.pdf.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: 2023 Farm Report for ISU Three Sisters Research Plot. Herrighty, Emma; Valeria Cano Camacho; Ajay Nair; Christina Gish-Hill; Marshall McDaniel. Reuniting the Three Sisters: Native American Intercropping, Seed Saving, and Plant Health. Ames, IA: Iowa State University, 2023.

Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:Since fall 2020, we have been able to reach our target audience of Native American gardeners and farmers on the Omaha, Santee Sioux, Oneida, Menominee reservations and Native gardeners in Sioux City and Minneapolis/ St. Paul, through outreach into their communities, attendance at an advisory board meeting held at Iowa State University, through virtual workshops, and by distributing extension materials and videos. We also reached our target audience of sustainable agriculture researchers and practioners by presenting a poster at MOSES, a paper at the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Symposium at Northern Michigan University, and the NIFA CARE project director's meeting. We reached the gardenning public in centralIowa with a Field Day at the ISU Horticulture Research Station, two presentations at Living History Farms, and a presentation to a second graders at a Des Moines Public School. We reached a wider gardening public through a presentation to the Penn State Master Gardeners. We have also reached our target audience of sustainable agriculture researchers and practioners through threepublications, a farm report with Iowa State Univeristy extension, a Master's Thesis, and a peer reviewedarticle in Agriculture and Human Values. These publications have lead to media interviews with Iowa Farmer Today, Midstory Podcast, Scientific American, and The West magazine. We have also reached both graduate and undergraduate students at Iowa State who have attended advisory board meetings, worked in our Three Sisters garden plots, and helped with research in the labs. Changes/Problems:The effects of COVID have been long lasting. In the fall of 2021 and growing season of 2022, we are still struggling to recruit Native growers willing to grow research plots because of the need for space to produce food for their communities. Travel has become easier and we have been able to present workshops and conduct ethnography, but recruitment for both is still challenging because of the caution people continue to take. We also continue to deal with challenges in the ISU research plots. The 2021 growing season struggled with smut production and bacterial disease on the squash. Since both are soil borne, the challenges continued for the 2022 growing season. To address these challenges, we changed maize and squash varieties in the research garden plots. Since we still had the rematriation responsibilities, we expanded our plot and planted those seeds there in hopes the distance would be enough to stop the spread. So far, we have noticed a significant less amount of smut on the corn, and have started seeing the beginning stages of the bacterial plight on the squash. We have been advised by members of our board to continue growing squash for production instead of seed. We are also dealing with challenges on the nutritional aspect of the project.The original scope of this discipline goals was to fully develop an adapted NEMS store assessment tool for grocery stores on or near reservations. This was set back due to COVID back in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, preliminary store assessment were conducted by a graduate student and staff on the project. Due to the short turn around process we had and limited travel availability, the only community stores assessed were in Nebraska. The data collected will be compared to the original NEMS and the adapted tool will be a draft presented to communities for local alterations. This season, the team made a conscious decision to increase workshop engagement and participation by preparing more hand on demonstrations and activities. This included providing materials for workshops that folks could take back to their home gardens and actively practice what was learned at the workshops. These activities were described in the previous workshop products section. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We have provided videos with useful information about gardening to Native farmers and gardeners. We have also built networks --using social media, specifically Facebook--between Native gardeners within their home communities and across tribal nations to share knowledge and even resources, like seeds. Extension work conducted by grad student Dereick Kapayou involved taking soil samples in potential participants gardens, providing information about growing techniques specific to each garden during our ethnographic visits, and teaching Native farmers and gardeners to read the soil test results for their gardens once they were processed. Extension work conducted by Emma Herrighty involved learning about the protocols for saving seed and rematriating it to Native communities, fulfilling these processes, and then working with Native collaborators to return the seed grown at ISU to Native growers with information about the seed itself and how it was handled. The workshops and field days we conducted share information with Native growers and local growers about organic horticulture, soil health, and Three Sisters agriculture. The team continues to train undergrads and grad students in developing skills in both ethnographic and agronomic field work, extension education, laboratory work, creating and conducting surveys, and analyzing agronomic and social science data. During the 2022 growing season, the project trained four undergraduate students from Iowa State University. These students were trained in Indigenous seed varieties and appropriate methodologies for seed preservation and care. Some examples include, creating mounds for planting, direct seeding Three Sisters intercropped system, transplanting corn from greenhouse seedlings, hand pollinating corn and squash plants, and developing a pollination garden plan. The students were also trained on plant and soil health data collections such as SPAD, soil temperature and moisture, and sampling. Students also received experience crop scouting for smut and squash bore. Lastly, students had the opportunity to answer questions on their experiences. The project hosted an intern form the Iowa State University George Washing Carver Internship Program. This second-year student was from Kirkland Community College and worked in the McDaniel Lab and Three Sisters project for eight weeks. He collected the weekly SPAD, soil temperature and moisture data, processed, and graphed his findings. However, due to length of the internship, his final 5-minute oral presentation and poster discussed the 2021 growing season data. He presented his titled work "Three Sisters Intercropping (Maize, Beans, and Squash) effect on Soil Microclimate and Plant Health" to the GWC Internship Program and invited guests. During his time with the project, his learned some R programming data visualization language, advanced excel functions, and experience doing public speaking and answering questions. Similar to previous years, our graduate students presented at the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Services (MOSES) Conference on February 24th, 2022, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Emma Herrighty presented a poster titled "Reuniting the Three Sisters: Native American Intercropping and Plant Health". In addition, students were able to attend skill building workshops and roundtable discussions, and able to network with folks in organic farming. On March 3rd - 6th, graduate students and staff attended the 19th Annual Great Lakes Indigenous Farming Conference in Callaway, Minnesota. They had the opportunity to listen to Winona LaDuke, Elizabeth Hoover, and many other great professionals about food, energy, economic and land sovereignty. In addition, they attended workshops related to Tibial Food, Agricultural Business, Indigenous Sciences, and Innovation. The attendees were able to network and meet folks from across the United State to discuss and explore new ideas and perspectives. Christina Gish Hill attended the Food Sovereignty Symposium & Festival on May 20th at the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and Northern Michigan University. The conference focused on creating spaces for presenters to share experiences and explorations related to food justice, Indigenous agriculture in North American and Indigenous sovereignty. Ethnographic interviews and conversations have lead PIs, students and staff to be invited to community Pow Wows. This summer, we have attended the Santee Sioux Nation Pow Wow on July 17th in Santee, Nebraska. We experienced the grand entrance of local community leaders and honorees and were able to appreciate cultural celebrations, helping students present learn about culturally appropriate behavior and cultural diversity. One graduate student was trained on the original NEMS-S, and developed a modified Native American NEMS-S instrument. Based on previous research, interview questions were developed and data collected from store managers. The graduate student also gained professional development experience through training other staff members to use the instrument. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?One of our most active forms communications with our community collaborators and members is our Three Sisters Gardening Project Facebook group. This group is managed by Christina Gish Hill and Susana Cabrera-Mariz. We provided weekly updates of the occurrences on the research and rematriation garden, as well as travel updates and workshop promotions. On a more formal platform, we host the Three Sisters Project webpage with an official Iowa State University domain. Here we update on our team members and blog about events related to the project. This webpage is also the home to the education videos related to the DIY Soil Health Kit. Results from the nutrition assessmentswill be disseminated to the communities of interest in the form of an infographic summarizing what healthy foods and traditional foods are available to them. Information regarding individual stores will remain confidential, but communities will be provided information on items available and the average price in a given radius. We have send emails with garden assessment results and soil test results, as well as phone calls to explain results. We have also send emails with transcripts of interviews for feedback. We have giventhree conference presentations and four presentations to growers and the wider community.We have published One Farm Progress Report and one peer reviewed article. We have also conducted multiple workshops for Native growers and for k-12 students. We also participated in the 2022ISU Horticulture Research Farm Field Day. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to finalize all ethnographic interviews, transcribe, and disseminate transcriptions to interviewees. So far, four interviews have been conducted this year and there are plans for at least two more by Christina Gish Hill. Gish Hill will continue to make ethnographic trips in the fall of 2022 and possibly the spring of 2023 to finalize these interviews and to request feedback on transcripts, analysis, and publication from collaborators. As of July 27th, all the store assessment data for the nutrition portion has been collected. The next steps are to analyze and report our findings to community members. We hope to provide a draft store analytic tool to assess access and availability of traditional foods in grocery stores on or near reservations. The 2022 growing season for the research and rematriation garden is set to continue until harvest in mid-October. We plan to continue collecting weekly leaf chlorophyll proxy and, soil temperatures and moisture readings. As of end of July, we have started our hand pollination process for all of the Winnebago Spotted corn and Algonquian Long Pie Pumpkin. This is set to continue until the end of August. At the end of the growing season, we plan to collect harvest yield with marketable and unmarketable distinctions, and soil samples for soil health assessments via microbial biomass, CO2 respiration and nutrient analysis. We will also process seed for rematriation and pass it along to the communities we are growing with. We plan to hold a final advisory board meeting to brief all members on the outcomes of the project. This is planned to be supported by the no-cost extension provided. Our goal is to produce a community report and publication for all our collaborators and partners. This report will include our main findings from all sub-disciplinaries (Ethnographic, nutrition, soil, and plant interactions with intercropping), summaries of the work and future steps. In addition, quotes and data will be accessible to our collaborators and partners for their use in community engagement. We plan to provide sufficient new material for students and staff to present at conferences and attend professional development and career related conferences. The team plans to write a manuscript documenting the development, implementation, results, and implications of this store assessment.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective One: Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics. Under the ethnography portion of objective one, lead by Dr. Gish Hill, we conducted ethnographic research in 2022 in all five communities and conducted in personinterviews. Dr. Gish Hill traveled with graduate student, Emma Herrighty and Susana Cabrerato each community, recruiting participants and learning about gardening and food sovereignty programs in each community. She connected with growers who had plots last year, encouraging them to grow again this year. We had four Native growers who grew plots the summer of 2022. She continued to build rapport through spending time in communities, helping to weed and harvest, cooking together, and taking baseline soil samples for potential participants. We conducted 6 interviews, and are in the process of transcribing the recordings currently. Under the nutrition portion of objective one, lead by Dr. Donna Winham,we are creating a nutrition environment measure for this project. She has also recruited a student to work on the project, to travel to communities, conduct interviews about access to food and diet, and to assess the nutrition environment on and around each Native community. This studentbegan in fall of 2021.The student worked with the team to assess thenutrition environmentin 11 grocery stores near two of the collaborating Nations.The store assessments involved utilizing the already established Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Stores (NEMS-S) and creating a new NEMS-S document focused on Native American foods. Both tools were used to assess the presence and accessibility of various food items that were deemed healthy, their regular alternatives, and traditional (for the newly created Native American instrument). For the purposes of this project, "accessibility" referred to the quality and price of the items, as well as the distance to the store. Short interviews were also conducted at stores with managers and employees who agreed to participate. The interview questions primarily focused on where stores get their food from, do they carry any locally produced food items, do they have Native American customers shop in their store, and what their customers may purchase. The stores that were chosen for assessment were limited to a certain radius, with the belief that community members are more likely to frequent closer stores. Some members from the Advisory Board also mentioned specific stores that may have fallen outside of this radius; these stores were included in the assessment. This project has accomplished the goal of relationship building and having an extension presence in the Native American and surrounding communities. The information gathered from the store assessments can be used to inform those in the Native American communities of food options available to improve their nutrition. In addition, due to the limited radius of stores that were assessed, this information can be presented to, and used by, the communities to shop more locally, thus having the potential to influence the local economy. Many of the store staff interviewed indicated that they do not carry much local food, if any, and even fewer carried any sort of product produced by the Native American communities. However, many indicated that they would like to carry more locally produced items, including those produced by the Native American communities. An increase in locally or Native American produced items in stores would have the potential to improve the economy of the rural communities. Objective Two: Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI to crop production and soil health. The ISU Horticulture Farm Plots and Exension objectives are being lead by Dr. Nair. The field season officially kicked off in May with tilling and raised-bed (mound) construction on our ISU research plot. Using the protocol developed by the advisory board, the team established the study on a certified organic field at the ISU Hort Research Station. The field was prepared by reconstructing the mounds and establishing the four treatments (corn monocrop, squash monocrop, bean monocrop, and corn-squash-bean intercrop. Treatments were randomized and each treatment in each replication consisted of a 20 x 20ft plot. Each plot comprised of 16 mounds.The garden was expanded to include space for rematriation seeds due to the pathogens and pest from previous years. The corn, bean, and squash varieties in the research garden are the Winnebago Spotted, Scarlet Runner, and Warren Turban, respectively. In the rematriation space, we have the Algonquin Long Pie, Wampum bean, and unnamed landrace bean retrieved from the UDSA plant introduction station identified by Native collaborators as in need of rematriation. Baseline soil samples were taken before planting and will be taken again at the end of the season. The 2021 growing season showed a lower yield on average with the 3 Sisters, however LER was around 2, which is considered high since the range is usually 1.22-1.3. We can interpret this as 3SI being more productive with less land and intense limitations including smut, bacteria pathogens, and variable environmental conditions. The second objective is also focused on the soil health of the 3Sisters.Soil Health objective lead by Dr. McDaniel has increased progress this year. At the end of the growing season, we sampled and determined salt-extractable Nitrate, and found it was consistently lower in the 3SI treatment compared to the controls. Soil respiration was consistently marginally higher in the 3SI treatment, approx. 6%, even though the decomposition rates were lower in the 3SI. Since this was technically our first full year of soil data, we are excited to see what this growing season has to show. During the spring of 2022, we held several zoom meetings with each community to determine which types of workshops are most needed in that particular community. We traveled to the Nebraska communities in June and July to conduct workshops. We plan to travel to the othercommunitiesto conduct workshops and on-farm field days in September and October of 2022.The workshops caterto native gardeners and community leaders in the Native American communities in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. This past reporting year, we have held four collaborative workshops with our partners in Macy, NE, Santee, NE. This process begins during our advisory board meeting, where our collaborators are able to request topics and ideas. We follow up with each community and plan workshops a based-on community interest and need. The topics have varied and are influence based on the audience of each workshop.The first workshop took place in Macy, NE at the Umhomon Public School gardens. We presented on soil and plant health and had age-appropriate demonstrations on agriculture systems. Our Workshop Topics: Soil and Plant health for K-12 students Intro to soil and garden health Rain Water catchment systems Composting and intro to permaculture Handouts for Workshop: Basic Soil for Garden Management Our team gathered valuable insights on gardening practices in communities. We received excellent feedback from our workshops which is helping us develop materials and educational tools for future virtual and in-person workshops and community engagement events. On August 15, 2022, we also held a ISU Horticulture Research Station Annual Fruit and Vegetable Farm Field Day in person, highlighting the Three Sisters plots at ISU. There were around 70people in attendance. Participants got an opportunity to observe the study in person and engaged in discussions and feedback.

Publications

Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Kapayou, D. & Herrighty, E. & Hill, C. & Camacho, V. & Nair, A. & Winham, D. & McDaniel, M.. (2022). Reuniting the Three Sisters: collaborative science with Native growers to improve soil and community health. Agriculture and Human Values. 10.1007/s10460-022-10336-z.
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Herrighty, Emma, Derrick Kapayou, Valeria Cano Camacho, Ajay Nair, Christina Gish Hill, Marshall McDaniel, and Donna Winham. "Reuniting the Three Sisters: Native American Intercropping, Seed Saving, and Plant Health." Iowa State University Research and Demonstration Farms Progress Reports 2021, no. 1 (2022).
Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Herrighty, Emma Morgan. "Seed Sovereignty, Rematriation, and Three Sisters Intercropping in Native American Communities." Master's Thesis., Iowa State University, 2022.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Dr. Christina Gish Hill and Emma Herrighty (M.S., M.A) attended the Royal Anthropological Institute: Anthropology and Conservation Virtual Conference during the 25th 29th of October 2021. The main objective of this conference is to recognize and provide a space for conservation discussion can be held, with Indigenous Peoples at the forefront. Dr. Gish Hill and Emma Herrighty were lead convenors for the panel: Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the American Corn Belt: Resurgence in the Face of Disruption.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Christina Gish Hill. Appropriation of Land and Seeds: Settler Colonialism's Impact on Native American Agriculturalists in the Midwestern U.S. Anthropology and Conservation Conference. UK.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Emma Herrighty, Seeing the Seeds Home: Increasing Opportunities and Responsibilities of Non-Native Seed-Holding Institutions within the Seed Rematriation Movement Anthropology and Conservation Conference. UK.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Emma Herrighty, Christina Gish Hill, and Ajay Nair, Reuniting the Three Sisters: Native American Intercropping and Plant Health, MOSES, Feb. 2022
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Christina Gish Hill, Reuniting the three sisters: enhancing community and soil health in Native American communities, Critical Agriculture Research and Extension (CARE; A1701) Program Project Director Meeting, on-line.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Christina Gish Hill, Indigenous Foodways of the Midwest: The Impacts of Contact and the Importance of Revitalization, Indigenous Iowans Day, Living History Farms, Des Moines, IA.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Christina Gish Hill, Three Sisters Agriculture Amongst Indigenous Peoples in Iowa, Indigenous Iowans Day, Living History Farms, Des Moines, IA.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Christina Gish Hill, A Look At Three Sisters Agriculture From the Ground Up, Food Sovereignty Symposium and Festival, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Christina Gish Hill, Growing Together With the Three Sisters: Indigenous Gardening for Cultural Resurgence, Program for Master Gardeners, Penn State, PA.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: George Washington Carver Intern, Does Three Sisters Intercropping (Maize, Beans, and Squash) Affect Soil Microclimate and Crop Health? GWC Internship Program Conference, ISU
Type: Theses/Dissertations Status: Under Review Year Published: 2023 Citation: Derrick Kapayou, TBA, Master's Thesis, Iowa State University.

Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Since fall 2020, we have been able to reach our target audience of Native American gardeners and farmers on the Omaha, Santee Sioux, Oneida, Menominee reservations and Native gardeners in Sioux City and Minneapolis/ St. Paul, through outreach into their communities, attendance at an advisory board meeting held virtually as a result of Covid restrictions, through virtual workshops, and by distributing extension materials and videos. We also reached our target audience of sustainable agriculture researchers and practioners by presenting virtually at theIndigenous Perspectives on Water and Conservation Workshop held by the North Central Region Water Network. We reached the gardenning public in Ames, Iowa with an invited presentation at Iowa State University's Research Days. We have also reached our target audience of sustainable agriculture researchers and practioners through two publications, a farm report and an article for The Conversation. These publications have lead to media interviews with Iowa Public Radio, The Ames Tribue, The Des Moines Tribune, XRay in the Morning of Portland, OR,and the Monday 8Oclock Buzz of Madison, WI. We have also reached both graduate and undergraduate students at Iowa State who have attended advisory board meetings, worked in our Three Sisters garden plots, and helped with research in the labs. Changes/Problems:The challenges associated with COVID-19 have bleed into the fall 2020 and spring 2021 research for this project. We had to get creative to conductsocial science research and our extension work--using virtual tools to communicate, conduct interviews, andpresent workshops. We were able to grow research plots at the ISU Horticulture Farm again this year, but our ethnographic work has slowed again because Native communities did not feel comfortable opening their doors until late in the spring. The nutrition research has also continued to beequally challenging. The communities we are working with were focused on growing food for their people, not on research plots or onfood environment assessments. This year we moved forward as best as we could and worked to open the door again, but there is still a lot that we can not do. We are hopefully planningfield days and on-farm workshops for the fall but are cautious because of the rise of the Delta variant.Native communities tend tolock down to protect their elders and children and if this variant gets worse, travel might not be possible.We still do not have as many Native collaborators growing plots as we hoped because many gardners and farmers stillface increased pressure to grow fresh fruits and vegetables for their wider community. On the other hand, Covid has encouraged many Native nations, including all those that we are working with, to rethink how prepared they are to feed their people. This has lead to increased interest in the project which hopefully will result in more participation next year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We have provided videos with useful information about gardening to Native farmers and gardeners. We have also built networks--using social media, specifically Facebook--between Native gardeners within their home communities and across tribal nations to share knowledge and even resources, like seeds. Extension work conducted by grad student Dereick Kapayou involved taking soil samples in potential participants gardens, providing information about growing techniques specific to each garden during our ethnographic visits, and teaching Native farmers and gardeners to read the soil test results for their gardens once they were processed. Extension work conducted by Emma Herrighty involved learning about the protocols for saving seed and rematriating it to Native communities, fulfilling these processes, and then working with Native collaborators to return the seed grown at ISU to Native growers with information about the seed itself and how it was handled.A YouTube video was also created to highlight the project and its findings especially focusing on corn smut disease and management (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIGZ2lLeF4o&t=10s) The workshops and field days we conducted share information with Native growers and local growers about organic horticulture, soil health, and Three Sisters agriculture. The team continues to train undergrads and grad students in developing skills in both ethnographic and agronomic field work, extension education, laboratory work, creating and conducting surveys, and analyzing agronomic and social science data. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Videos Webpagehttps://threesistersproject.language.iastate.edu/ Facebook page Emails with assessment results and soil test results, as well as phone calls to explain results Emails with transcripts of interviews for feedback Zoom calls Three conference presentations One Farm Progress Reporthttps://www.iastatedigitalpress.com/farmreports/article/id/12307/ One popular articlehttps://theconversation.com/returning-the-three-sisters-corn-beans-and-squash-to-native-american-farms-nourishes-people-land-and-cultures-149230 Workshops ISU Horticulture Research Farm Field Day What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Under Objective One: Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics. Ethnographic Research Dr. Gish Hill will continue to expand herethnographic research, recruiting more participants, conducting follow-up interviews, and visiting each community for participant observation once. We will completetransribingand analyzingour interview data. Nutrition Research Dr. Donna Winham will create a nutrition environment measure, collect preliminary pilot data for each location, and begin assessing the nutrition environment in each community. She will map retail store outlets on and in proximity to study sites and determine if 20 mile radius from reservation border is too much or too little depending on location. She will recruit and train students to travel to communities, conduct interviews about access to food and diet, and to assess the nutrition environment on and around each Native community. Dr. Gish Hill will organize another advisory board meeting to report our results to our Native collaborators and revisit the protocals in place. Under Objective Two: Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI to crop production and soil health. ISU Horticulture Farm Plots and Exension objectives lead by Dr. Nair. We will continue our ISU plots. We will collect information about plant growth and yeild, and collect soil samples from ISU plots and Native farmers' plots. The Native gardners have been asked to report information about 1. soil testing and analysis report (the instructions should be included with your soil testing protocol) 2. planting date 3. cultivar name 4. plant count 5. germination date or pattern 6. insect or disease observations 7. harvest date 8. yield 9. quality attributes In fall of 2021, we will harvest and return corn, bean, squash and sunflower seeds to communities as requested by the advisory board. On farm workshops will be conducted in September andOctober of 2021with input from the advisory board about topics and dates. We will continue to interact with the board to determine furture workshops for the spring. Soil Health objective lead by Dr. McDaniel Soil health kits will be released and sampling continue in 2021.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective One: Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics. Under the ethnography portion of objective one, lead by Dr. Gish Hill, we conductedethnographic researcher in all five communities and conducted extensive interviews, both over WebEx and in person. Dr. Gish Hill traveled with graduate student, Emma Herrighty, to each community, recruiting participants and learning about gardening and food sovereignty programs in each community. She connected with growers who had plots last year, encouraging them to grow again this year. We had four Native growers who grew plots summer of 2021.She and Herrighty continued to buildrapport through spending time in communities, helping to weed and harvest, cooking together, and taking baseline soil samples for potential participants. We conducted 26 interviews, recruiting participants using the snowball method. These interviews were recorded and are in the process of being transcribed. Under the nutrition portion of objective one, lead by Dr. Donna Winham, we arecreating a nutrition environment measure for this project. She has alsorecruiteda studentto work on the project, to travel to communities, conduct interviews about access to food and diet, and to assess the nutrition environment on and around each Native community. This student will begin in fall of 2021. During ethnographic visits, Dr. Gish Hill gained a sense of the kinds of survey tools communities wished to employ to learn more about access to food and their nutritional environment. Dr. Gish Hill also organized and ran an advisory board meeting spring 2021, inviting board members and developing an agenda and protocol for discussion. This meeting was conducted over WebEx because of the travel restrictions in place due to Covid.This board meeting provided an opportunity for our team to build rapport and develop collaborative research relationships with the Native participants on our project. This provided the opportunity to conduct informal interviews about food sovereignty efforts in each community and the role of Three Sisters intercropping. We also revisited ourprotocols for growing techniques to be used in all research plots including the ISU plots, for soil sampling techniques to be used, and for culturally appropriate procedures in place for the seeds and produce that would be grown at the ISU plots. The advisory board was concerned that produce might simply be thrown away, so we discussed a plan to grow seeds for rematriation as a way to give back to the community and are discussing the possibility of donating any produce left over. We put this plan into action during the 2020 harvest season, rematriating seed to Native communities and distributing produce at the near by Meskwaki reservation and in conjunction with the local food bank. Dr. Winham took the opportunity to gain more feedback aboutthe nutrition assessment and has utilized theinput from each community in developing the tool. She is following up over the summer. We have also held one follow up meeting by zoom in early summer to keep our collaborators updated on our progress. Objective Two: Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI to crop production and soil health. TheISU Horticulture Farm PlotsandExension objectivesare being lead by Dr. Nair. The field season officially kicked off in Maywith tilling and raised-bed (mound) construction on our ISU research plot. Using the protocol developed by the advisory board, the team established the study on a certified organic field at the ISU Hort Research Station. The field was prepared by reconstructing the mounds and establishing the four treatments (corn monocrop, squash monocrop, bean monocrop, and corn-squash-bean intercrop. Treatments were randomized and each treatment in each replication consisted of a 20 x 20ft plot. Each plot comprised of 16 mounds. In May, the first crop seeded was the Turtle Mountain White corn in two treatments that require it: the corn monocrop and the Three Sisters treatment. A total of 700 seeds were seeded to ensure our best chances of full germination. A few days later, Arikara sunflower seeds were broadcasted in a 3ft wide perimeter around the entire field. This year we also had volunteer sunflowers in our fields which we allowed to grow because they drew pests away from the corn. This year we used drip irrigation instead of overhead. Sunflower seedlings had also emerged at this time. During June, we seeded Hidatsa beans and a week later we seeded Algonquinsquash directly.At that point, we have all Three Sisters growingin the field with the Fourth Sister, Sunflower, established as a natural border. Baseline soil samples were taken before planting and will be taken again at the end of the season. During the spring of 2021, we held several zoom meetings with each community to determine which types of workshops are most needed in that particular community. Weplan totravelto each community to conduct workshops and on-farm field days in September and October of 2021but due to Covid 19 travel restrictions in the fall of 2020 and spring of 2021, we heldvirtual synchronous workshops. We held a workshop at the beginning of August 2020 and another in the spring of 2021. Based on the needs assessment, our team organized two Virtual Workshops (7 August and 30 October, 2020) and a stakeholders meeting (2/18/21) to disseminate our research findings. The workshops catered to native gardeners and community leaders in the Native American communities in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The virtual workshops covered following topics: Soil fertility and health in home gardens How to set up drip irrigation Seed saving for home gardener DIY Soil Health Tests Key insect pests of squash, beans, and corn Basics and troubleshooting of composting Both workshops had 15-20 participants and had an engaging Q&A session. Below are learning and action outcomes from our workshops: Participants learned about several IPM tools and techniques Specific and detailed information on soil health indicators and DIY soil health kits Participants received information on creating high value and quality compost in their backyards and several troubleshooting methods for proper composting In addition to participants engaging with subject matter specialists, both workshops created a platform for peer-to-peer learning Participants gained relevant information on above mentioned topics and had an opportunity to ask gardening related questions. Our team gathered valuable insights on gardening practices in communities. We received excellent feedback from our workshops which is helping us develop materials and educational tools for future virtual and in-person workshops and community engagement events. On 22 July, 2021, we also held a ISU Horticulture Farm Field Day in person, highlighting the Three Sisters plots at ISU. There were around 160 people in attendance. Participants got an opportunity to observe the study in person and engaged in discussions and feedback. Soil Health objective lead by Dr. McDaniel has increased progress this year. He and grad student Derrick Kapayou havedistributed DIY Soil Health test videos and educational materials to our Native stakeholders. These videos, made for a home grower featuring materials that can be purchased at any big box store, provide useful information on soil healthwhich native gardeners have told us they need. He and Kapayou have also conducted several of these soil tests in the ISU plots.The data iscurrently being processed by a graduate student assistant with more to come fall of 2021. Four Native growers are growing research plots and we will collect soil samples from them after the harvest season of 2021.

Publications

Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Herrighty E. & Nair A. & Gish Hill C., (2021) Reuniting the Three Sisters: Native American Intercropping and Soil Health, Iowa State University Research and Demonstration Farms Progress Reports 0(4).
Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Returning the Three SistersCorn, Beans, and Squashto Native American Farms Nourishes People, Land, and Cultures. The Conversation, Nov. 20, 2020.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Derrick Kapayou and Christina Gish Hill, A Look At Three Sisters Agriculture From the Ground Up, Food Sovereignty Symposium, Northern Michigan University, Sept, 2020.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Emma Herrighty, Seeing the Seeds Home: Increasing Opportunities and Responsibilities of Non-Native Seed-Holding Institutions Within the Seed Rematriation Movement, Anthropology and Conservation Virtual Conference, Royal Anthropological Institute, Oct. 2020.
Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: Appropriation of Land and Seeds: Settler Colonialism's Impact on Native American Agriculturalist in the Midwest

Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Since fall 2019, we have been able to reach our target audience of Native American gardeners and farmers onthe Omaha, Santee Sioux, Oneida, Menominee reservationsand Native gardeners in Sioux City and Minneapolis/ St. Paul, through outreach into their communities, attendance at an advisory board meeting at Iowa State University, and by distributing extension videos. We also reached our target audience of sustainable agricultureresearchers and practioners at the MOSES conference through a poster presentation. We reached the gardenning public in Ames, Iowa with an invited presentation at a local speakers series. We have also reached both graduate and undergraduate students at Iowa State who have attended advisory board meetings, worked in our Three Sisters garden plots, and helped with research in the labs. Changes/Problems:With COVID-19, all human face-to-face research has been suspended.This has severly hampered all social science research and our extension work. Luckily we have been able to grow research plots at the ISU Horticulture Farm, but our ethnographic work has slowed dramatically. Without face to face visits, recruitment of new pariticpants is almost impossible and participant observation is not possible at all. The nutrition research is equally challenging. Without being able to travel to grocery stores to conduct surveys or to recruit and interview participants, the food environment assessment is not possible. We have been moving forward with the resources we have and have been thining creatively, but there is a lot that we can not do. Furthermore, the field days and on-farm workshops that we had planned are not possible. Native communities are also on lock down and are not allowing travel into their communities. It is unknown when these restrictions will be lifted. We are working to create virtual workshops, but without face to face interaction, our offerings are limited. Furthermore, we are not able to provide something to each community as a result of the workshop (ie a composting system, a drip irrigation system, raised beds) as we would have if we could have traveled to each community. This is vital for collaborative research in Native communities. The relationship depends on researchers who are able to give back to communities to lessen the imballance created by taking knowledge from these communities. While this poses a challenge, we are hopeful that we will be able to meet again face to face by next growing season. Finally, we do not have as many Native collaborators growing plots as we hoped because many gardners and farmers now face increased pressure to grow fresh fruits and vegetables for their wider community. They feel that this year they do not have the garden space to devote to research. Again, we are hoping this will shift for next year. Covid 19 restrictions have severly limited the scope of our research this field season, but we are maintaining momentum and are hopeful that we will be able to accomplish many of our research goals once Native communities lift their travel restrictions. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?So far, we have provided videos with useful information about gardeningto Native farmers and gardeners. We have also builtnetworks between Native gardeners within their home communities and across tribal nations to share knowledge and even resources, like seeds. Extension work by conducted by grad student Dereick Kapayou involved taking soil samples in potential participants gardens, providing information about growing techniques specific to each garden during our ethnographic visits, andteaching Native farmers and gardeners to read thesoil test results for their gardens once they were processed. The advisory board meeting included a visit to the Ames Plant Introduction Station where Native boad members learned about the Indigenous seeds held at the PI Station and about the process for requesting these seeds. The team continues to trainundergrads and grad students in developing protocols, assessing needs of community, ethnographic methods, survey methods,horticulture, and soil testing. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Videos Emails with assessment results and soil test results, as well as phone calls to explain results Zoom calls One conference presentation MOSES (Dr. Christina Gish Hill and Derrick Kapayou) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?UnderObjective One:Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics. Ethnographic Research Dr. Gish Hill,and Derrick Kapayou will continue to expand our ethnographic research, recruiting more participants, conducting follow-up interviews, and visiting each community for participant observation once Covid restrictions are lifted. We will also begin to transribe and analyze our interview data. Nutrition Research Dr. Donna Winhamwill create a nutrition environment measure, collect preliminary pilot data for each location, and begin assessing the nutrition environment in each community. She will map retail store outlets on and in proximity to study sites and determine if 20 mile radius from reservation border is too much or too little depending on location. She will recruit and train studentsto travel to communities, conduct interviews about access to food and diet, and to assess the nutrition environment on and around each Native community. Dr. Gish Hill will organize another advisory board meeting to report our results to our Native collaborators and revisit the protocals in place. UnderObjective Two:Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI to crop production and soil health. ISU Horticulture Farm Plots and Exension objectives lead by Dr. Nair We will continue our ISU plots. We willcollect information about plant growth and yeild, and collect soil samplesfrom ISU plots and Native farmers' plots. The Native gardners have been asked to report information about soil testing and analysis report (the instructions should be included with your soil testing protocol) planting date cultivar name plant count germination date or pattern insect or disease observations harvest date yield quality attributes In fall of 2020, we will harvest and return corn, bean, squash and sunflowerseeds to communities as requested by the advisory board. Virtual workshops willbe conducted in August, October, and November with input from the advisory board about topics and dates. We will continue to interact with the board to determine furture workshops, on farm visits and field days when Covid restrictions are lifted. Soil Health objective lead by Dr. McDaniel Soil health kits will be released and sampling continue in 2021.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective One:Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics. Under the ethnography portion of objective one, lead by Dr. Gish Hill, we conducted preliminary ethnographic researcher. Dr. Gish Hill traveled withgraduate student, Derrick Kapayou, to each community, discussing the grant and all the research involved, recruiting participants and learning about gardening and food sovereignty programs in each community. She was able to win support for the project, including participation in growing research plots and support for ISU's Three Sisters research plot. She and Kapayou built rapport through spending time in communities, helping to weed and harvest, cooking together, and taking baseline soil samples for potential participants.She also worked very closely with another of her graduate students to determineculturally appropriate seeds and gardening techniques for the ISU research plots. While she was planning on continuing ethnographic research in each of these communites in the spring, restrictions connected with the Covid outbreak have not allowed us to travel. Nevertheless, our preliminary research has allowed us to build rapport in each of these communities and at this point in time, we have 7 zoom interviews lined up for late June and early July. We continue to recruit interviewees. Under the nurition portion of objective one, lead by Dr. Donna Winham, has conducted a literature search for other nutrition environment measures utilized for Native American communities. She is working to create a nutrition environment measure for this project which should be in place by fall of 2020 or spring 2021. She has also begun recruiting for students to work on the project, to travel to communities, conduct interviews about access to food and diet, and to assess the nutrition environment on and around each Native community. Dr. Gish Hill also organized and ran an advisory board meeting spring 2020, inviting board members and developing an agenda and protocol for discussion. Advisory board members traveled from Omaha, Santee, and Oneida, and a board member from Dream of Wild Health participated via zoom. This board meeting provided an opportunity for our team to build rapport and develop collaborative research relationships with the Native participants on our project. This provided the opportunity to conduct informal interviews about food sovereignty efforts in each community and the role of Three Sisters intercropping. We also developed protocols forgrowing techniques to be used in all research plots includingthe ISU plots, for soil sampling techniques to be used, and for culturally appropriate procedures in place for the seeds and produce that would be grown at the ISU plots. The advisory board was concerned that produce might simply be thrown away, so we discussed a plan to grow seeds for rematriation as a way to give back to the community and are discussing the possibility of donating any produce left over. Together with a graduate student, Dr. Gish Hill followed up with each community to determine the seeds that should be grown for rematriation and which community the seeds should go to. Dr. Winham introduced thenutrition assessment and requested input from each community in developing the tool.She is following up over the summer. We have also held one follow up meeting by zoom in early summer to keep our collaborators updated on our progress. Objective Two:Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI to crop production and soil health. The ISU Horticulture Farm Plots and Exension objectives are being lead by Dr. Nair. Thefield season officially kicked off in Early June with tilling and raised-bed construction on our ISU research plot. Using the protocol developed by the advisory board, the team selected an organic fieldat the ISU Hort farm that would limit cross pollination to accomodate the needs of our collaborators for rematriation. The field was prepared and laid outfor four plots of corn, beans, squash, and Three Sisters intercroppedeach withfour treatments. The first crop seeded was corn for our two treatments that require it: the corn monocrop and the Three Sisters treatment. The treatments were randomized for each rep and assigned to 20x20ft blocks within the field. On June 4th, we seeded our Turtle Mountain White corn after creating, by hand, the 16 mounds for each treatment. We seeded a total of 700 seeds that day to ensure our best chances of full germination. A few days later, on the 8th, our Arikara sunflower seeds were broadcasted in a 3ft wide perimeter around the entire field. Fortunately, the next day we received some much needed rain to jumpstart the germination of both the corn and sunflower seeds. On June 15th, we installed overhead irrigation to give our corn seedlings, at that point about two inches tall, some extra moisture to encourage faster growth. Sunflower seedlings had also emerged at this time, despite some early predation from birds. During the last full week of June, we seeded our Hidatsa beans and Arikara squash in the greenhouse. We decided to grow these as transplants, and not direct seed them as is customary, due to our late field start from Covid. The beans will be transplanted the first week of July, with the squash following a week later. At that point, we will have all Three Sisters happily reunited in the field with the Fourth Sister, Sunflower, established as a natural border. Baseline soil samples were taken before planting and will be taken again at the end of the season. During the spring, we held zoom meetings with each community to determine which types of workshops are most needed in that particular community. We had planned on traveling to each community to conduct workshops and on-farm field days, but due to Covid 19 travel restrictions, we are now planning to hold virtual synchronous workshops. Our first workshop is planned for the beginning of August and we will hold two more in fall of 2020. We havealso distributed Integrated Pest Management YouTube videos to our Native stakeholders. These videos,made for vegetable growers, provide useful information on soil and pest management which native gardeners have told us they need. This YouTube video series covers a range of topics, including: "Resources to Scout and Identify Vegetable Diseases and Insects" "Need help with a plant problem? Get in touch with you Plant Clinic" "Resources to Manage Vegetable Diseases and Insects" "Tomato and Tobacco Hornworm" "Squash Bug and Squash Vine Borer" "Japanese Beetle" "Irrigation Controllers" "High Tunnel Controllers" "Befriend Your Cations" "Know Your Soil" "Cucumber Beetles" Colorado Potato Beetle" Soil Health objective lead by Dr. McDaniel COVID-19 has slowed progress on thesoil sampling front--Three Native gardnerstook their own samples and one has returned their samplesto ISU. They arecurrently being processed by a graduate studentassistant.

Publications

Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: 2020 Christina Gish Hill and Derrick Kapayou. Collaborative science with Native farmers can overcome barriers to Improve soil and community health. (Poster) Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service, La Crosse, WI.

Progress 07/01/19 to 06/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Since fall 2019, we have been able to reach our target audience of Native American gardeners and farmers onthe Omaha, Santee Sioux, Oneida, Menominee reservationsand Native gardeners in Sioux City and Minneapolis/ St. Paul, through outreach into their communities, attendance at an advisory board meeting at Iowa State University, and by distributing extension videos. We also reached our target audience of sustainable agricultureresearchers and practioners at the MOSES conference through a poster presentation. We reached the gardenning public in Ames, Iowa with an invited presentation at a local speakers series. We have also reached both graduate and undergraduate students at Iowa State who have attended advisory board meetings, worked in our Three Sisters garden plots, and helped with research in the labs. Changes/Problems:With COVID-19, all human face-to-face research has been suspended.This has severly hampered all social science research and our extension work. Luckily we have been able to grow research plots at the ISU Horticulture Farm, but our ethnographic work has slowed dramatically. Without face to face visits, recruitment of new pariticpants is almost impossible and participant observation is not possible at all. The nutrition research is equally challenging. Without being able to travel to grocery stores to conduct surveys or to recruit and interview participants, the food environment assessment is not possible. We have been moving forward with the resources we have and have been thining creatively, but there is a lot that we can not do. Furthermore, the field days and on-farm workshops that we had planned are not possible. Native communities are also on lock down and are not allowing travel into their communities. It is unknown when these restrictions will be lifted. We are working to create virtual workshops, but without face to face interaction, our offerings are limited. Furthermore, we are not able to provide something to each community as a result of the workshop (ie a composting system, a drip irrigation system, raised beds) as we would have if we could have traveled to each community. This is vital for collaborative research in Native communities. The relationship depends on researchers who are able to give back to communities to lessen the imballance created by taking knowledge from these communities. While this poses a challenge, we are hopeful that we will be able to meet again face to face by next growing season. Finally, we do not have as many Native collaborators growing plots as we hoped because many gardners and farmers now face increased pressure to grow fresh fruits and vegetables for their wider community. They feel that this year they do not have the garden space to devote to research. Again, we are hoping this will shift for next year. Covid 19 restrictions have severly limited the scope of our research this field season, but we are maintaining momentum and are hopeful that we will be able to accomplish many of our research goals once Native communities lift their travel restrictions. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?So far, we have provided videos with useful information about gardeningto Native farmers and gardeners. We have also builtnetworks between Native gardeners within their home communities and across tribal nations to share knowledge and even resources, like seeds. Extension work by conducted by grad student Dereick Kapayou involved taking soil samples in potential participants gardens, providing information about growing techniques specific to each garden during our ethnographic visits, andteaching Native farmers and gardeners to read thesoil test results for their gardens once they were processed. The advisory board meeting included a visit to the Ames Plant Introduction Station where Native boad members learned about the Indigenous seeds held at the PI Station and about the process for requesting these seeds. The team continues to trainundergrads and grad students in developing protocols, assessing needs of community, ethnographic methods, survey methods,horticulture, and soil testing. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Videos Emails with assessment results and soil test results, as well as phone calls to explain results Zoom calls One conference presentation MOSES (Dr. Christina Gish Hill and Derrick Kapayou) What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?UnderObjective One:Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics. Ethnographic Research Dr. Gish Hill,and Derrick Kapayou will continue to expand our ethnographic research, recruiting more participants, conducting follow-up interviews, and visiting each community for participant observation once Covid restrictions are lifted. We will also begin to transribe and analyze our interview data. Nutrition Research Dr. Donna Winhamwill create a nutrition environment measure, collect preliminary pilot data for each location, and begin assessing the nutrition environment in each community. She will map retail store outlets on and in proximity to study sites and determine if 20 mile radius from reservation border is too much or too little depending on location. She will recruit and train studentsto travel to communities, conduct interviews about access to food and diet, and to assess the nutrition environment on and around each Native community. Dr. Gish Hill will organize another advisory board meeting to report our results to our Native collaborators and revisit the protocals in place. UnderObjective Two:Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI to crop production and soil health. ISU Horticulture Farm Plots and Exension objectives lead by Dr. Nair We will continue our ISU plots. We willcollect information about plant growth and yeild, and collect soil samplesfrom ISU plots and Native farmers' plots. The Native gardners have been asked to report information about soil testing and analysis report (the instructions should be included with your soil testing protocol) planting date cultivar name plant count germination date or pattern insect or disease observations harvest date yield quality attributes In fall of 2020, we will harvest and return corn, bean, squash and sunflowerseeds to communities as requested by the advisory board. Virtual workshops willbe conducted in August, October, and November with input from the advisory board about topics and dates. We will continue to interact with the board to determine furture workshops, on farm visits and field days when Covid restrictions are lifted. Soil Health objective lead by Dr. McDaniel Soil health kits will be released and sampling continue in 2021.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective One:Assess importance of 3SI practice to Midwestern Native American communities, determine the reasons for decline and current obstacles to revitalization, and potential for revitalized 3SI practice to improve nutrition and rural community economics. Under the ethnography portion of objective one, lead by Dr. Gish Hill, we conducted preliminary ethnographic researcher. Dr. Gish Hill traveled withgraduate student, Derrick Kapayou, to each community, discussing the grant and all the research involved, recruiting participants and learning about gardening and food sovereignty programs in each community. She was able to win support for the project, including participation in growing research plots and support for ISU's Three Sisters research plot. She and Kapayou built rapport through spending time in communities, helping to weed and harvest, cooking together, and taking baseline soil samples for potential participants.She also worked very closely with another of her graduate students to determineculturally appropriate seeds and gardening techniques for the ISU research plots. While she was planning on continuing ethnographic research in each of these communites in the spring, restrictions connected with the Covid outbreak have not allowed us to travel. Nevertheless, our preliminary research has allowed us to build rapport in each of these communities and at this point in time, we have 7 zoom interviews lined up for late June and early July. We continue to recruit interviewees. Under the nurition portion of objective one, lead by Dr. Donna Winham, has conducted a literature search for other nutrition environment measures utilized for Native American communities. She is working to create a nutrition environment measure for this project which should be in place by fall of 2020 or spring 2021. She has also begun recruiting for students to work on the project, to travel to communities, conduct interviews about access to food and diet, and to assess the nutrition environment on and around each Native community. Dr. Gish Hill also organized and ran an advisory board meeting spring 2020, inviting board members and developing an agenda and protocol for discussion. Advisory board members traveled from Omaha, Santee, and Oneida, and a board member from Dream of Wild Health participated via zoom. This board meeting provided an opportunity for our team to build rapport and develop collaborative research relationships with the Native participants on our project. This provided the opportunity to conduct informal interviews about food sovereignty efforts in each community and the role of Three Sisters intercropping. We also developed protocols forgrowing techniques to be used in all research plots includingthe ISU plots, for soil sampling techniques to be used, and for culturally appropriate procedures in place for the seeds and produce that would be grown at the ISU plots. The advisory board was concerned that produce might simply be thrown away, so we discussed a plan to grow seeds for rematriation as a way to give back to the community and are discussing the possibility of donating any produce left over. Together with a graduate student, Dr. Gish Hill followed up with each community to determine the seeds that should be grown for rematriation and which community the seeds should go to. Dr. Winham introduced thenutrition assessment and requested input from each community in developing the tool.She is following up over the summer. We have also held one follow up meeting by zoom in early summer to keep our collaborators updated on our progress. Objective Two:Determine, document, and disseminate the agronomic benefits of 3SI to crop production and soil health. The ISU Horticulture Farm Plots and Exension objectives are being lead by Dr. Nair. Thefield season officially kicked off in Early June with tilling and raised-bed construction on our ISU research plot. Using the protocol developed by the advisory board, the team selected an organic fieldat the ISU Hort farm that would limit cross pollination to accomodate the needs of our collaborators for rematriation. The field was prepared and laid outfor four plots of corn, beans, squash, and Three Sisters intercroppedeach withfour treatments. The first crop seeded was corn for our two treatments that require it: the corn monocrop and the Three Sisters treatment. The treatments were randomized for each rep and assigned to 20x20ft blocks within the field. On June 4th, we seeded our Turtle Mountain White corn after creating, by hand, the 16 mounds for each treatment. We seeded a total of 700 seeds that day to ensure our best chances of full germination. A few days later, on the 8th, our Arikara sunflower seeds were broadcasted in a 3ft wide perimeter around the entire field. Fortunately, the next day we received some much needed rain to jumpstart the germination of both the corn and sunflower seeds. On June 15th, we installed overhead irrigation to give our corn seedlings, at that point about two inches tall, some extra moisture to encourage faster growth. Sunflower seedlings had also emerged at this time, despite some early predation from birds. During the last full week of June, we seeded our Hidatsa beans and Arikara squash in the greenhouse. We decided to grow these as transplants, and not direct seed them as is customary, due to our late field start from Covid. The beans will be transplanted the first week of July, with the squash following a week later. At that point, we will have all Three Sisters happily reunited in the field with the Fourth Sister, Sunflower, established as a natural border. Baseline soil samples were taken before planting and will be taken again at the end of the season. During the spring, we held zoom meetings with each community to determine which types of workshops are most needed in that particular community. We had planned on traveling to each community to conduct workshops and on-farm field days, but due to Covid 19 travel restrictions, we are now planning to hold virtual synchronous workshops. Our first workshop is planned for the beginning of August and we will hold two more in fall of 2020. We havealso distributed Integrated Pest Management YouTube videos to our Native stakeholders. These videos,made for vegetable growers, provide useful information on soil and pest management which native gardeners have told us they need. This YouTube video series covers a range of topics, including: "Resources to Scout and Identify Vegetable Diseases and Insects" "Need help with a plant problem? Get in touch with you Plant Clinic" "Resources to Manage Vegetable Diseases and Insects" "Tomato and Tobacco Hornworm" "Squash Bug and Squash Vine Borer" "Japanese Beetle" "Irrigation Controllers" "High Tunnel Controllers" "Befriend Your Cations" "Know Your Soil" "Cucumber Beetles" Colorado Potato Beetle" Soil Health objective lead by Dr. McDaniel COVID-19 has slowed progress on thesoil sampling front--Three Native gardnerstook their own samples and one has returned their samplesto ISU. They arecurrently being processed by a graduate studentassistant.

Publications

Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2020 Citation: 2020 Christina Gish Hill and Derrick Kapayou. Collaborative science with Native farmers can overcome barriers to Improve soil and community health. (Poster) Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service, La Crosse, WI.