Young okra plant on drip irrigation.  Photo by Tessa Lowinske Desmond.

Faculty Lead: Jonathan Conway

The plant microbiome – the microbes that are in, on, and around roots and leaves – have a large impact on the growth, health, and productivity of plants. This microbiome community changes with various cues including plant age, soil type, and stress conditions like drought. Understanding the mechanisms by which these microbes interact and provide benefits to plants will enable us to deploy them to improve the growth of plants in our agriculture systems. 

Many studies have identified microbes that are enriched in plants undergoing drought stress, and suggest that these microbes provide protective benefits to the plant enabling them to survive drought stress and grow better when watering resumes. The mechanisms for this microbiome-mediated drought resilience are unknown. At the Seed Farm in summer 2023, the Conway Lab in Princeton’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, grew corn and soybean groups with different watering treatments. We monitored these plants over a period of 3 months, taking root samples every two weeks.  These samples will be used for DNA sequencing to determine what microbes are present over periods of water availability versus drought. The Conway lab is also isolating microbes from the soil at the Seed Farm to enable lab-scale experiments that recapitulate the results in the field.  

Ultimately our goal is to develop microbial strains that can be used to inoculate agricultural crops to improve their drought tolerance and improve agricultural productivity. These strains may also provide other benefits to plants that reduce or eliminate the need for pesticides or fertilizers. Understanding ways to improve crop resilience during drought is important as extreme weather events caused by climate change continue to increase and threaten our agriculture systems.  

Okra oil seed study display at the Variety Showcase hosted by the Culinary Breeding Network.  Oct 2023.  Photo by Tessa Lowinske Desmond.

Faculty Lead: Jonathan Conway and Tessa Lowinske Desmond

Collaborating Partners: The Utopian Seed Project

The Okra Oil Seed Study is a project of The Utopian Seed Project (TUSP) based in Asheville, North Carolina.  Together with TUSP and the Conway Lab in Princeton’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, we are assessing the oil content in okra seeds to collect data to further inform TUSP’s okra breeding project to breed a new variety of okra for artisanal oil production.  In addition to analysis of okra oil seed content, the Conway Lab is mapping the okra genome.  

In his book, The Whole Okra, Chris Smith, founder and director of TUSP, documents the value of okra as a low-input, hardy, climate resilient crop and also its potential to produce a wide range of agricultural products.  The entirety of the plant is useful: the leaves can be eaten like greens, the pods consumed as a tender vegetable, the flowers are edible, the seeds can be toasted, ground, or pressed, the stalk is fibrous and can be used for cording or weaving.  Smith has made okra ice cream, okra cake, okra paper, okra face cream, and many other okra-based products.  The way we currently use okra is synonymous to how we use “baby corn” if that were the only product we harvested from corn.  The agricultural potential for okra in a climate-uncertain future is significant.  In an effort to encourage farmers to grow more okra, Smith seeks to breed a new variety that would enable artisanal oil production, a high-value product for farmers and just one of the many potential crop outputs.

In 2023, we grew out Smith’s F2 population of okra bred from heirloom, high-oil seed varieties.  Students at The Seed Farm planted, transplanted, tagged, bagged, and harvested okra from 2,000 genetically-unique plants in the field.  The Conway Lab has used NMR analysis to assay these samples and inform selections for the F3 population, which will be planted in 2024.  The breeding project is expected to require at least eight seasons of selection.  

Maycock Squash on display at the Variety Showcase hosted by the Culinary Breeding Network.  Oct 2023.  Photo by Tessa Lowinske Desmond.

Faculty Lead: Tessa Lowinske Desmond

Collaborating Partners: Experimental Farm Network, Native Roots Farm Foundation, Ujamaa Coopertive Farming Alliance

The Maycock and Nanticoke Squash Project and the Lenni Lenape Blue Pulling Corn Project are both revitalization projects that aim to bring the seeds of Lenape varieties back to Lenapehoking and build interest in growing, eating, and maintaining them.  Ancestral seeds have an important role to play in resilient agriculture because they have evolved to survive and fill ecological niches in their specific places.  Ancestral seeds can also carry important stories, histories, and lessons for survival.  Through the revitalization projects for these varieties, we are working to understand and help recover the agricultural wisdom and cultural knowledge related to these crops.  

Maycock Squash is a summer squash or Curcurbita pepo.  Nanticoke Squash is a winter squash or Curcurbita maxima.  Each of these squash varieties have their own story but they were both shared with The Seed Farm by Nate Kleinman, co-founder and co-director of the Experimental Farm Network.  We received seeds of the Nanticoke Squash in 2022.  They were planted in the first garden at The Seed Farm.  During the harvest season, Kleinman introduced us to Courtney Streett, founder and director of Native Roots Farm Foundation.  Our three organizations joined together to harvest the seeds with students from AMS 415: Land and Story in Native America.  While we separated squash seeds from pulp, we talked about another squash whose cultivation is attributed to Nanticoke people, the Maycock.  Maycock is a the Nanticoke word for squash.  Kleinman had seeds for that too.  

Since that first meeting, our organizations have begun working together to revitalize seed stock and share the stories of these two varieties of squash.  Native Roots Farm Foundation passed out starts for the Nanticoke Squash at Pow Wows in summer 2023.  The Seed Farm grew the entire collection of Maycock varieties during that same summer in an attempt to understand the diversity of this landrace squash.  In 2024, we will continue growing this squash in partnership with Native Roots Farm Foundation by planting it in a Three Sisters garden with corn seed from the Lenni Lenape Blue Pulling Corn Revitalization Project.  Our organizations will tend these plantings together, one garden in Princeton at The Seed Farm and one garden closer to Native Roots’ headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.

While the goals for both squash in this project include reestablishing the varieties in Lenapehoking and reuniting the varieties with people in the Lenape Diaspora, we also hope to work together to breed the Maycock variety back to its original landrace character.  The crop that was grown at The Seed Farm in 2023 presented itself in 22 distinct phenotypes.

Lenni Lenape Blue Corn shared at a breakfast during the Lenape History & Culture Symposium.  Oct 2022.  Photo by Tessa Lowinske Desmond.

Faculty Leads: Tessa Lowinske Desmond and Sarah Rivett

Collaborating Partners: Experimental Farm Network, Native Roots Farm Foundation

The Lenni Lenape Blue Pulling Corn Project and the Maycock and Nanticoke Squash Project are both revitalization projects that aim to bring the seeds of Lenape varieties back to Lenapehoking and build interest in growing, eating, and maintaining them.  Ancestral seeds have an important role to play in resilient agriculture because they have evolved to survive and fill important ecological niches in their specific places.  Ancestral seeds can also carry important stories, histories, and lessons for survival.  Through the revitalization projects for these varieties, we are working to understand and help recover the agricultural wisdom and cultural knowledge related to these crops.  

We are still learning about the story of this corn variety that is thought to have originated in Lenapehoking a long time ago.  Seeds of Lenni Lenape Blue Pulling Corn were shared with The Seed Farm by Nate Kleinman, co-founder and co-director of the Experimental Farm Network, who received seed for this rare variety of blue sweet corn from Cherokee seedkeeper Chris Hubbard.  Kleinman is working to share seed of this variety back to people in the Lenape Diaspora and especially those people still living in Lenapehoking.  He has asked The Seed Farm to grow this special crop in order to multiply the seed for sharing.  Along the way, The Seed Farm has had the opportunity to invite attendees of the Lenape History and Culture Symposium, many of whom are from the Lenape Diaspora, and the Munsee Language Camp, a gathering of Munsee language teachers, to participate in seed selection of this crop for successive plantings.

This seed plays a special role in the life of The Seed Farm.  It is one of the first seeds that was shared with us to grow.  The seed also contains many of the aspirations we have for the farm: to grow rare, culturally-meaningful seeds and participate in replenishment and revitalization of both the seed’s stock and the seed’s stories.  To recognize its special place in the life of the farm, each spring graduating seniors are asked to plant the seeds for this crop. 

In 2024, we will begin growing this corn in partnership with Native Roots Farm Foundation by planting it in a Three Sisters garden with squash seeds from the Maycock and Nanticoke Squash Revitalization Project.  Our organizations will tend these plantings together, one garden in Princeton at The Seed Farm and one garden closer to Native Roots’ headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.

To read more about this variety of corn (or maize) visit the Experimental Farm Network’s information page.

Ira Wallace and Sariyah Benoit in the Victory Garden at Spelman College.  Aug 2022.  Photo by Hassan Adeeb.

Faculty Leads: Tessa Lowinske Desmond and Hanna Garth

Collaborating Partners: Spelman College Food Studies Program, Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance

The Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project is a collaboration among Princeton University, Spelman College, and the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance.  Through oral history, HGP documents stories of people who have been working to preserve Black and Indigenous seed and foodways.  HGP grows out of the work of The Seed Farm, particularly from the relationship between The Seed Farm and Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance.