Partnership to increase seed stock of corn through traditional methods
Graduate student Paul Lema harvests an ear of Ho-Chunk Speckled. (Bryce Richter)
Madison, WI (November 20, 2024) - Through a close partnership with Ho-Chunk tribal members, crop scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have increased the seed stock of Ho-Chunk corn varieties for the tribe while maintaining traditional growing methods.
When the Ho-Chunk Nation Department of Agriculture discovered that some of its crop varieties were at risk, it found an eager collaborator in UW–Madison agronomy professor Bill Tracy.
The project is based at the West Madison Agricultural Research Station and is helping to protect and boost threatened corn varieties, including Ho-Chunk Speckled, Bronze Beauty, and Ho-Chunk White. It is also now part of an expansive, USDA-funded effort between the university and Indigenous tribes to support their traditional food supply and expand food sovereignty.
As a plant breeder, Tracy would usually look at methods to genetically select and breed a corn variety to be more productive, sometimes by crossing one variety of corn with another. But while those methods may work for a commercial farm, Tracy knew they wouldn’t provide the traditional product the Ho-Chunk were looking for.
“There’s lots of ways to increase productivity without changing the [corn] variety,” says Tracy.
Instead, Tracy and his collaborators in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences increased productivity by reducing tillage and soil disruption, planting cover crops and growing beneficial crops alongside the corn. The Ho-Chunk also expressed a strong interest in organic agriculture and avoiding herbicides. While that can create conditions for weeds in the field, they’re working together to find an effective solution. The team is also looking at ways to create or adapt machinery for farming in traditional ways.
The crop scientists and Ho-Chunk partners have gone to great lengths to prevent cross-pollination with the commercial corn that’s widely grown in Wisconsin, covering the ears of Ho-Chunk Speckled corn in bags. And then they carefully hand pollinate the corn with pollen only from the variety itself.
Written by Elise Mahon
