Northern Arizona University

   

Southwest Regis-Tree - A CSE Food and Land Project

Working to Celebrate and Conserve the Region’s Heirloom Fruits and Nuts in Historic Orchards

The Center for Sustainable Environments has revived and revamped regional efforts to document and save over sixty of the Southwest region’s most celebrated fruits and nuts.

Combining food folklore with in situ plant conservation, the Southwest Regis-Tree is an outgrowth of an earlier project begun in Tucson by Kevin Dahl and Gary Nabhan of Native Seeds/SEARCH in 1991. Then called Arizona Regis-Tree, the initiative located over one hundred historic orchards and remnant fruit trees throughout the state, documenting their histories and mapping their varieties. Dahl, who is now the Executive Director of Native Seeds/SEARCH, recognized the value of remnant orchards in providing vegetative cuttings that could be used by permaculturists and historic preservationists alike. Nabhan, who has since become the Director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, recently dusted off these records, entered them into a web-accessible format, and recruited a new set of co-sponsors for the project.

In addition to Native Seeds/SEARCH, the founding organization, active participants in the revived Regis-Tree include Prescott College’s Wolfberry Farm, and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum’s Kino Fruit Tree Project.

“We’re branching out to the neighboring states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, hoping to incorporate a broader range of Native American, Hispanic, Mexican, Mormon, European and Chinese horticultural legacies into this project,” Nabhan explained. “We’re actively working with Hopi orchard-keepers to take cuttings from trees that survived the drought to return grafted saplings to their communities. We’re also helping to restore historic orchards in state and national parks, from Capitol Reef in Utah’s Canyonlands, to Slide Rock near Sedona, all the way down to Organ Pipe Cactus on the Mexican border.”

For the first time in history, fruit and nut enthusiasts will have web-based access to the locations of historic orchards that may be visited by the general public, and to detailed descriptions of more than sixty heirloom fruit and nut varieties still present in the Greater Southwest. Those with a lust for adventure can download a form, then seek out and nominate additional sites for inclusion in the Southwest Regis-Tree. In addition, the Center for Sustainable Environments will begin to offer workshops on heirloom fruit tree propagation and maintenance beginning this March at various locations around the Southwest. Kanin Routson, the new coordinator for the Regis-Tree, can also field questions.

The list of neglected and threatened fruits and nuts already encountered by the Regis-Tree is truly mouth-watering. It includes the Black Sphinx date of central Arizona, which has been featured at Alice Water’s Chez Panisse restaurant in California, and the Capitol Reef Red apple, which was recently honored on Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste. The list goes on to include Texas Mission almonds, Chinese Hunto jujubes, Mormon apricots, Potawatomi plums, Sonoran White pomegranates, Hohokam agaves, Black Mission figs, and Navajo peaches.

Capitol Reef Historic Orchards Assessment
The orchards of the Fruita Historic District in Capitol Reef National Park, located in central Utah, are the largest historic orchard complex in the national park system. The 2,700 fruit trees in the park are a mix of historic fruit trees of heirloom varieties interspersed with young fruit trees of modern commercial cultivars. The Center for Sustainable Environments (CSE) is working with Capitol Reef National Park to assess the condition of the orchards and to derive a management plan for the orchards that will focus on restoring the historical context of the district while maintaining current objectives of producing fruit for picking by park visitors. Tasks that CSE is currently working on include identifying the species and varieties of the historic fruit trees, completing condition assessments of the orchards, updating park GIS maps of the orchards, and developing a management plan for future management objectives of the orchards.

Restoration of Orchards of the Hopi Mesas
The Natwani Coalition has been involved in a multi-year project to restore the historic orchards of the Hopi Mesas. CSE is not directly involved with this project, but we offer assistance as necessary and will potentially be involved with the identification and preservation of the Hopi Peach and other heirloom varieties grown historically on the Hopi Mesas.

Restoration of the Slide Rock Orchards, Slide Rock State Park
CSE is working in conjunction with Slide Rock State Park in Oak Creek Canyon to restore the historic orchards planted by the Pendley Family. CSE will be involved with registering the orchards with the National Register of Historic Places, mapping the orchards, propagating and replanting the historic trees, and reestablishing varieties that have already gone extinct from the park, but are still available from elsewhere. This project is currently underway, but the majority of the tasks will unfold within the next year.

More sources of information

• Orchard Locations (PDF, 370k)
• Fruit and Nut Descriptions (PDF, 242k)
• Conservation Strategies (PDF, 131k)
• Nominate an Orchard Location (PDF, 66k)

For more information, contact Gary Nabhan or Kanin Routson

Last updated 03-Aug-2006

   

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