Soil Chemistry and Microbiome Transplant for Wild Rice Restoration

2020-2022 Biennial Request for Proposal Project
Close up of wild rice grains in their husks on a tarp

Image credit: M. Thoms

The goal of this project is to determine whether wild rice restoration is hindered by a scarcity in microbial populations needed to free nutrients from sediment and make them available to wild rice.

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Why do this

Wild rice is an important economic and cultural resource in the Great Lakes region whose abundance has declined in many locations. Soil-plant-microbe interactions should be considered as a part of holistic management strategies for successful wild rice restoration.

Funding

Minnesota Sea Grant provided research support through our 2020-2022 biennial competitive Request for Proposal (RFP) process.

Lead scientist(s)

Nathan Johnson
Associate Professor & Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Minnesota Duluth
218-726-6435
nwjohnso@d.umn.edu

Scholarly Articles

  • LaFond-Hudson, S., Johnson, N. W., Pastor, J., & Dewey, B. (2022). Sulfur geochemistry destabilizes population oscillations of wild rice (Zizania palustris). Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 127, e2022JG006809. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JG006809

Partners

  • 1854 Treaty Authority, Tribal Government
  • Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Tribal Government