Thom Bri wrote:
Skyler Weber wrote:I am not ready to give up because the idea of water-free corn is too awesome to let go. But, I want to try different seed. Has anyone had good (or mediocre) results and can you post the links of where you go the seed?
I guess that means not good results? This year was unusually hot and dry. Next year is predicted, due to El Nino, to be wetter. Might help.
Best suggestion I can make is to try to find locally grown seeds.
Also, I am skeptical that the natives of that region NEVER watered their corn. I bet they carried water by hand to get the seeds started.
Location, Location, Location
" The favored planting location is an “ak-chin” field, an area on the alluvial fan where the water spreads out at the mouth of the wash. Hopi can identify the soil’s capacity for moisture below by the kind and quantity of natural vegetation growing on the surface.
“The weeds will tell,” says Michael Kotutwa Johnson (Hopi). For instance, land adjacent to fields dominated by rabbitbrush indicates abundant soil moisture. Johnson and University of Arizona educator Lisa Falk co-curated an exhibition about “The Resiliency of Hopi Agriculture” that is on display at the Arizona State Museum—a Smithsonian Affiliate— through January 2020.
The Hopi farmers also grow beans, squash, melons and some fruit trees. Some of those fields may be irrigated, but the Hopi never irrigate their corn. That crop depends solely on two sources of water: winter snowfall and summer rain. Only the moisture stored in the soil is available from planting time until midsummer, when rains usually fall. The Hopi hedge their bets by planting corn in multiple fields in dissimilar locations up and down the wash or in side canyons. Planting at separate sites increases the chances that at least one will produce a good crop.
Once they decide where to plant, the Hopi men clear off any weeds and scrape away a small patch of the sandy surface layer of the soil. The sand serves as kind of mulch, preventing moisture in the loam below from evaporating too rapidly. The planters plunge the flat-tipped digging stick into the ground, creating a hole a foot deep, then plant eight to 12 kernels in each hole so the corn grows in clumps. Each clump is five to seven paces away from its neighbor to ensure that enough water is available for optimum growth. Depth and spacing can depend on soil moisture at planting time, the field’s location relative to rainwater runoff and whether it is composed of clay or loam, among other factors.
“Enormous amounts of traditional ecological knowledge are associated with dry farming,” says Susan Sekaquaptewa, a Hopi tribal member who works for the University of Arizona’s Cooperative Extension Program. “The environment dictates the technique, and you only learn that from experience.”
Conventional corn is planted only 2 inches deep and 6 to 8 inches apart. The Hopi plant their corn deeper to catch the moisture from the winter’s melted snow, which lies farther below the surface. That required careful selection of plants, preserving changes that became encoded in their genes. When Hopi corn germinates, the seed sends out a single strong root downward, searching for the water that lies even deeper in the ground. It also sends a shoot upward to the surface. These adaptations, which are lacking in conventional varieties, helped Hopi corn thrive in a hot, dry environment for 2,000 years.
“Hopi agriculture is the end result of a complicated process of culture, biology and environment,” says Kelly Swarts, a geneticist and archaeologist at the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology at the University of Vienna. “The corn used by the Hopi today was mostly developed by the Hopi on the Hopi mesa in response to novel genetic variations. People took advantage of this variation in ways that made sense to them culturally and which were better adapted to the landscape they lived on.”
Once the new corn pokes up above the surface of the ground, Hopi farmers thin the stalks out, leaving only the tallest five to eight plants in each clump. That favors the genes that get plants established and growing quickly. The extra stalks are placed around the remaining plants to shield them from the wind and preserve soil moisture. The farmers do not use fertilizer or insecticides but rather patrol the fields during the summer to pick off cutworms that can damage the plants.
“Hopi is the only place I know where corn is planted to fit the environment,” says Johnson. “The environment is not manipulated to fit the corn.”"
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