Wild rice journaling?

Hello fellow wild rice enthusiasts! (Those of us crazy enough to LOVE going out in all sorts of weather with the bugs, sun, muck and more bugs!) One of the goals of SORA is to increase our understanding of natural wild rice, how it grows, ripens, etc. and to understand our human role as we interact with it. While conducting my research several years back, many of the wild rice harvesters/gatherers I interviewed mentioned keeping a journal about their ricing experience every year. In these journals amounts of rice harvested, dates and times, conditions of rice and even weather patterns were often noted. What might these journal entries provide us in regards to understanding wild rice ripening patterns and abundance?

SORA is looking to apply for grants to answer this question. Very little scientific study of natural wild rice ecology (growth, abundance, distribution) has been published. Would harvester journals be able to provide a data set going back 30-50 years? How would this information be collected? Who would have access to this information? Would harvesters be willing to share their journals with SORA? How many journals are out there that go back 30-50 years? What is the range of information available?

You can help with this project. In fact, you, as a wild rice gatherer and journal keeper, ARE the project. Please consider offering your opinion and expertise to SORA as we move forward to make this project a reality. We will be sending out inquiries to harvesters to look at interest and involvement, and I'm sure we'll be holding some meetings. My thoughts are that we will initiate this as a pilot project to check interest and data availability (ie. how many journals are there and what kind of data is in them?)

As always, please feel free to contact Annette at adrewes@saveourrice.org with any comments or ideas. Until next week, stay warm!

Annette