Ecosystem and Soil Studies of Native American Runoff Agriculture

9528458桑多尔祖尼农民世代使用暴雨径流收集系统在新墨西哥州中西部的祖尼印第安保留区种植玉米和其他作物。与美国西南部半干旱地区的其他普韦布洛部落一样，祖尼人的径流耕作方法使用传统意义上的肥料或灌溉。农民们把短暂的雨水引到合适的田地里，为农作物提供水分和养分。为期三年的研究目的是对祖尼径流田的农业生态结构和功能进行分析描述。要评估的系统输入是来自农田上坡的自然流域并由短暂径流输送的水分、营养物质和土壤物质。系统产出将根据作物的直接产量和反映在农业土壤质量上的长期生产力来评价。本项目将采用的方法基于可持续土地利用研究的两个关键领域：监测农业土壤的长期状况和制定保护生态系统资源的管理做法。祖尼地区有两千多年的耕种历史，为这两方面的努力提供了宝贵的信息：保留区拥有美国最古老的可识别的农业用地，这里的研究将农业对景观的影响扩展到可持续性概念所设想的时间框架内，补充了现代长期生态和农业实验。这项研究也将有助于对这种半干旱生态系统的基本了解。它将应用于其他干旱和半干旱地区的可持续农业发展，以及祖尼可持续农业系统的振兴。该项目是祖尼部落和一个跨学科研究团队的合作项目，该团队包括来自新墨西哥州、爱荷华州立大学和怀俄明大学的科学家。祖尼部落目前的可持续农业经济重建计划直接适用于这项工作。

9528458 Sandor Generations of Zuni farmers have used a storm runoff harvesting system to grow maize and other crops in the area of the present day Zuni Indian Reservation in the West-central New Mexico. As with other Pueblo tribes of the semiarid southwest U.S. Zuni methods of runoff farming use on fertilizer or irrigation in the conventional sense. Farmers credit ephemeral stormwater flows, which they divert onto well placed fields, with supplying moisture and nutrients to produce crops. The goal of this three year study is to analytically describe agroecological structure and function of Zuni runoff fields. System inputs to be evaluated are moisture, nutrients, and soil materials derived from natural watersheds upslope from fields and transported by ephemeral runoff. System output will be evaluated as productivity both in terms of immediate crop yield and long-term productivity, reflected in agricultural soil quality. The approach to be used in this project is based on two key areas of research on sustainable land use: monitoring long-term condition of agricultural soils and developing management practices that conserve ecosystem resources. The Zuni area, farmed for over two thousand years, provides information valuable to both endeavors: the Reservation contains some of the oldest identifiable agricultural land in the U.S. Studies here extend knowledge about effects of agriculture on landscapes into a time frame envisioned in the concept of sustainability, complementing modern long-term ecological and agricultural experiments. This research will also contribute to basic understanding of such semiarid ecosystems. It will have applications to sustainable agriculture development in other arid and semiarid areas, and to revitalization of a sustainable agricultural system for Zuni. The project is a partnership between the Zuni Tribe and an interdisciplinary research team, including scientists from New Mexico, Iowa State University, and University of Wyoming. The Zuni Tribe's curre nt plan for redevelopment of a sustainable agarian economy has direct applications for the work.