How the seed passed from the Abenaki to white settlers is unknown, but what is known is that the genetic strength of Abenaki Flint is due in large part to the efforts of Abenaki seed breeders. And while the revival of Abenaki Flint (sometimes called Roy’s Calais) is unique, many of our familiar crops share a story of lost lineage. 

Bringing a seed to a high level of performance is not accidental: Instead, it is a years-long process of observation, testing and careful stewardship. All of our most important food crops have undergone this process, yet many of the ties to their original producers have been severed. How we credit this work is a complicated process. 

One of the methods of attributing value to seed creators is through royalties. Royalties are traditionally paid out to seed breeders who file a patent proving that their seed offers a new genetic profile with distinct characteristics from other seeds on the market. But what about the hundreds of years of foundational development before the common practice of patents and royalties? How do we recognize some of the most important seed architects?  

In 2018, in recognition of this question, Fedco Seeds designated Abenaki Flint as “indigenously stewarded,” along with a handful of other varieties, and started allocating 10 percent of the proceeds from seed sales to a donation fund under its Indigenous royalties initiative. 

Nikos Kavanya, seed branch co-ordinator at Fedco Seeds, was responsible for implementing  Fedco’s program. “The impetus came from my sense of justice,” Kavanya said in an email. “For me, honoring our debt to the goodness and beauty of the past, especially for something as vital as seed, is a core value.”  

Fedco was already paying royalties to independent seed breeders, but Kavanya felt that the foundation of some of that breeding work was going unrecognized and unrewarded. 

“We were paying current breeders for seed that they had developed—but which had been bred before by many tribal peoples, whose work had, in many cases, been stolen,” said Kavanya. 

“We exist in an industry that tends to be very pro intellectual property rights,” says Courtney Williams, Fedco Seeds’ co-ordinator and product developer. Of the Indigenous royalties program, she says the company wants to “value [the Indigenous work] in a way that is akin to valuing these intellectual property constructs awarded by patent offices.”

Determining which varieties to designate was the most challenging part of implementing the program. It is difficult to narrow down which crops deserve designation and harder still to confirm the lineage. How do you trace the story of something as complicated as a seed, small enough to fit in a pocket, and—up until recently—difficult to genetically verify?

“A case could be made that all of the seeds we sell were Indigenously derived,” said Kavanya.

Hopi Blue Corn. (Photo courtesy of Fedco Seeds)

The first stage of Fedco’s project was to designate varieties with the most overt connection, such as those with a tribal affiliation in their name, such as Hopi Blue Corn, Jacob’s Cattle Bean and Waneta Plum.

Choosing to call the designation Indigenous royalties was also a decision based on ease of communication, more than precision of the term. “We were already distributing ‘breeders royalties’ to some of the independent breeders whose seed we sell and so it felt like an easy shift for our customers to make,” said Kavanya. 

Royalties traditionally refer to a direct payment made to an individual or company, but in this case, due to the difficulty of determining provenance, the proceeds are pooled. Therefore, Kavanya and her co-workers at Fedco decided to name a single beneficiary: a local project called Nibezun that crosses tribal affiliations to reach a broader constituency. Nibezun is a registered non-profit that operates on 85 acres in Passadumkeag, Maine, with access to Olamon Island, the original home of the Penobscot Nation and Abenaki confederacy. 

Through the allocation of 10 percent of seed sales, along with direct donations from customers, Fedco paid out about $10,000 in Indigenous royalties last season.

In 2018, when Kavanya first started exploring a method to pay homage to indigenous breeders, she met with other seed sellers to brainstorm and explore the practical steps. Following up with those that sat around the table with her, she says she doesn’t see any evidence of implementation.  

“I couldn’t find any of that work continued. It’s disheartening. There was a certain momentum at the time,” said Kavanya. She cites two possible obstacles. The first is with scale. For some companies, “the amount of seeds they are selling is so small, it felt sort of futile,” said Kavanaya. The second is with general opposition to the imprecision of the vocabulary itself.  Using the word “royalties” was an unpopular decision with both sellers and Indigenous groups. 

Because the money from all the designated seed varieties is pooled and not tagged to individual tribal breeders, “it is not terminology that everyone thinks is most representative,” writes Kavanya. An alternate name for the practice, which emerged from the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network, is “Indigenous seed benefit sharing.”

“Terminology is worthy of thoughtfulness, but, hopefully, [it] does not overshadow root concerns, which in this case includes the commercialization of seeds and the unsettled matter of what is adequate compensation for what to some are relatives, ancestors and children,” says Dr. Andrea Carter, AG outreach and education manager at Native Seeds/SEARCH, an Arizona-based seed conservation organization.

Recognition of prior ownership is a first step, but what about returning the seeds? Groups such as Native Seeds/SEARCH and the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance are working on drafting policies and beginning the work of returning Indigenous seeds to their native communities. They call the process “rematriation,” in recognition of the role women have played in seed stewardship. Returning seed breeding and stewardship to original Indigenous keepers on Indigenous land is an important step in seed sovereignty, which is in turn a foundational step in food sovereignty. 

According to NAFSA (the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, which houses the Indigenous Seed Keepers’ Network), “Seeds are a vibrant and vital foundation for food sovereignty and are the basis for a sustainable, healthy agriculture. We understand that seeds are our precious collective inheritance and it is our responsibility to care for the seeds as part of our responsibility to feed and nourish ourselves and future generations.”

“Rematriation of all Indigenously derived seeds is impractical,” acknowledges Kavanaya. It would mean no beans, corn or squash available on the commercial market. But recognizing this does not mean that all Indigenous seeds should be available commercially. Some nonprofits such as Native Seeds/SEARCH are removing culturally significant varieties from their catalog while choosing to leave others readily available. 

Small seed companies provide a valuable service to all gardeners looking to benefit from careful breeding and stewardship, but seeds are not just food: they are also a living cultural legacy. Acknowledging this idea is just the first step toward addressing a complex issue. “It is a larger and much-needed conversation that requires the voices of many,” says Carter.

The post Payment for the Past: Recognizing Indigenous Seed Stewardship appeared first on Modern Farmer.

A Canadian study  suggests that cutting a real tree is a more sustainable choice than purchasing an artificial tree, but what if there was a guilt-free option? A small group of Christmas tree farmers are using a harvesting method that keeps the conifers alive, making it possible to harvest another tree from the same root system indefinitely. Stump culturing, a method of coppicing conifers, could reduce soil disruption and increase carbon sequestration. Farmers can decrease their wait time for new stock, increase their supply of salable greens and gain more soil resilience during times of drought. 

In the United States, stump-culturing is sometimes attributed to Linwood Lesure. Lesure began his experiments in the 1940s and was widely known in Christmas tree circles, serving twice as president of the Christmas Tree Growers Association of Massachusetts and named the 1977 National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year by the American Forest Institute.  

Stump culture falls somewhere in the middle between two regeneration techniques. In the first, coppicing, the tree is cut at ground level. In the second, pollarding, the tree is cut chest high to develop a dense stand of canopy branches. Stump culture is an intermediate knee-high cut that preserves a few whorls of lower branches, necessary for the photosynthesis needed for regrowth.

From a land management perspective, stump culturing has many possible benefits. According to the Palmer Drought Index, 44 percent of the contiguous US experienced moderate to extreme drought in 2022. Trees resprouting from a mature root system will have a higher rate of survival than young seedlings during low-water conditions. Managing existing stumps also means minimizing soil disturbance. Research suggests that no-tillage systems increase carbon sequestration and soil health. While stump removal strategies vary from farm to farm, many farms do mechanically pull stumps to provide more room for new seedlings. Minimizing the use of machinery may also allow growers to plant conifer stands on more marginal land, such as steep slopes, supporting soil stabilization. 

For producers, the accelerated rate of return is the main advantage. “If we plant a new seedling, it will take six to eight years to get a tree back. Stump culturing takes two years off that time,” says Eli McGee, owner and manager of McGee Christmas Tree Farm in Placerville, CA. Emmett Van Driesche, owner of Pieropan Christmas Tree Farm in Shelburne Falls, MA, reports an even shorter return, in three to five years. At his farm, sometimes two or three trees can be regrown from the same stump simultaneously. 

This old stump has been harvested six times, and dates back to a planting from 1978. Photography by Eli McGee

The mature skirt branches that remain after the initial cutting of the tree are large and bushy, but apart from being a maintenance hurdle, these branches represent a valuable asset. These branches, which need to be cut back every year, are the same product sought after by wreath makers. Whether a farmer is making their own wreaths or selling the boughs wholesale, stump culturing creates an abundance of superior, fresh material. Wholesale balsam boughs and wreaths are often balled early and shipped long distances from Maine and Canada. 

Van Driesche capitalizes on this, making his own wreaths. He reports that wreath revenue is closing in on 40 percent of the money he makes each season. Scott Brady, owner of the Brady Tree Farm in Schenevus, NY, also reports that stump culturing has been “advantageous” for diversifying his products and adding additional revenue.   

Although not unknown in professional and academic circles, stump culturing is still considered primarily the realm of the hobbyist, most likely because of the nuanced approach it requires of the farmer. “If we think of horticulture as the art and science of tending a garden, this is as much art as it is science,” says Dr. Bert Cregg, Professor of Horticulture and Forestry at Michigan State University. Whether the trees are planted in rows or grown in a more organic structure, the management of stump cultured trees requires a mental readjustment. 

Stump culture is not a process of nurturing or coddling seedlings, it is working in tandem with the full strength of the tree as it regenerates. Van Dreiche says his predecessor, Al Pieropan, used to call it “leaning on the trees,” a phrase that took Van Dreiche a period of time to understand but now knows intimately. “It is culling and selecting for the best sprout from two dozen contenders. It is trimming the skirt to half of what’s there, knowing that in four or five years it will all have returned,” says Van Driesche, who calls his trees “ferocious.” 

“Stump cultured trees also result in a different-looking plantation, if you can call it that,” says Dr. Cregg. Trees are harvested and grow at different speeds, resulting in a multi-aged stand with side branches coming up at all different angles, which Brady says can “whack you as you walk in the aisles and mow.” In addition to a few bruised shins, the branches can also make fertilization and irrigation more complex. 

Scott Brady trims back new growth.

Mark Krawczyk, author of Coppice Agroforestry: Tending Trees for Product, Profit, and Woodland Ecology, calls this process “re-sprout silviculture.”

“In all of these methods, we are not looking at the regeneration of seeds but, instead, harvesting the energy of sprouts,” says Krawczyk. It is still unclear if all conifers will successfully regrow from a stump. “Are there limits? Is it universal? More research is needed.” 

Krawczyk is quick to remind that “very few things benefit everything all the time.” Stump culturing as a system is not necessarily a replacement for growing Christmas tree stock from seedlings. Instead, it can be seen as another “tool in our tool kit,” he says.  

Some experts worry that the exposed stumps may provide an entry point for wood rotting fungus such as Armillaria, but Dr. Cregg says the bigger risk is not being able to adapt your genetics with each successive generation. Insect pressure and illness can quickly affect an entire stand of trees, something growers usually combat by rotationally planting a different species. Stump cultured stands won’t have that same opportunity, although Dr. Cregg says growers can mitigate this risk by planting diverse stands on the onset. However, some growers, such as Van Drieche, see the continuity in genetics as an asset; they are able to choose and regrow their most outstanding specimens. Some of Van Drieche’s trees have gone through eight or nine periods of regrowth. Van Driesche compares the practice to Japanese bonsai, a biological art form with specimens 100s of years old, and he sees no sign of the trees slowing down. “I suspect that there is no upper limit.”

The post The Infinite Christmas Tree: How to Cut Your Tree So it Will Grow Again appeared first on Modern Farmer.