PEDOLOGIC ASSESSMENT OF NON-IRRIGATED DESERT AGRICULTURE IN THE FOUR CORNERS REGION: PRELIMINARY RESULTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PUEBLO FARMING PROJECT

Examination of dryland farming practices in experimental, subsistence, and commercial contexts without irrigation suggests intimate connections between long-term fertility, soil identity, and physical management practices. These findings have implications for interpreting the cultural record of past Puebloan agriculture, as well as ensuring soil sustainability and food security in the dryland environments of the Colorado Plateau.

We conducted soil profiling at each of five experimental Pueblo Farming Project gardens on the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center campus, and interviews and soil inspection with a commercial bean farmer and subsistence corn growers. Profiling included classification of color, texture, horizonation, structure, root density, and carbonate accumulation. We also sampled profiles for future analysis of mineralogy and granulometry, and measurement of ion content, pH, and conductivity.

Though carbonate accumulation is a limiting factor in all cases, rate of pore closure and soil hardening appears closely tied to soil parent. We observed farming in soils of two different parent materials: fresh sandstone-derived sediment and the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Mesa Verde loess. Induration is a higher risk in the loess soil, but one farmers are able to manage on the decade to century scale with systems of harrow-tilling and fallowing.

The Pueblo Farming Project is a collaborative effort between archaeological researchers and Pueblo leaders to preserve traditional farming knowledge and educate the public concerning traditional farming practices and the sacred place of corn cultivation in Pueblo cultures. Project gardens have been planted with corn and beans continuously and without tillage since 2006, providing measures of change due to cultivation across a loess-derived catena. The profiles here (taken directly adjacent to the gardens) will serve as a baseline for comparison with profiles to be taken next year from within the planted garden area.