Agriculture

Beginning Farmers Up and Running

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Community Contributed

By Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent, UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources

Food security is vital to our survival on Molokai in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As one of the most isolated places in the world, we continue to rely on almost 90 percent of our food and items vital for our survival coming from over 3000 miles away. Yet still, we only have enough food in Hawaii to last about seven days – just enough time for the next container ship to arrive. What if the barge doesn’t arrive one day? We need to focus on developing more farmers.

After getting some of the infrastructure functional and selecting participants, the Molokai Native Hawaiian Beginning Farmer Program is up and running. An orientation meeting and workshops were held in production mapping, introduction to farm production, soil fertility, organic agriculture, marketing, and drip irrigation. Classes are being planned as the beginning farmers enter that phase in their farm development.

With over 7,600 acres of agricultural land and water available from the Molokai Irrigation System, the Ho`olehua Hawaiian Homes area is a natural for this kind of program. With farmers aging nationally, the average age of farmers is 57 years old while the average age of the workforce is 38 years of age. We have made a commitment to help develop the next generation of farmers to complement those already farming in order to maintain a critical mass of small farmers needed on Molokai.

Participant’s plots were prepared by mowing, ripping, and disking. Crops were selected, and include lettuces, sweet corn, mixed local vegetables, laying chickens, taro, and others. Participants are expected to harvest on a regular basis and deliver to local markets or other avenues to sell their crops. This program has a strong business management and production focus. Participants were required to complete a production map, approved by project managers to assure the plan is well thought out and covers as many what-ifs as possible. With an acceptable production plan, participants can then move forward to implement their plan.

The Molokai Native Hawaiian Beginning Farmer Program is an education and training initiative of the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, Molokai Cooperative Extension Service. This project was supported by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. For more information, contact our office at 567-6929. We’re located next to the Ho`olehua Post Office.

Growing Upland Taro: Part II

Thursday, October 21st, 2010

Community Contributed

By Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent

In growing taro, water control is important. Using a timer is an efficient way to control water frequency and duration, and assures that surface roots are moist daily. Fertilizer and roots will only move where there is water. Clogging and pinching of the drip irrigation line is a major concern when growing taro, and some farmers will lay extra drip lines between the rows when there’s first indication of this problem. Insufficient water is the greatest stressor of taro, so some farmers are converting to new kinds of drip line that’s more rigid and less likely to pinch or clog.

Wind protection is important, but taro also needs good air circulation to deter diseases and pests. A major disease is leaf blight caused by a fungus called Phytophthora (‘leaf destroyer’) and is more prevalent at higher elevations than in the lowlands. This disease can melt the leaves and affect starch content and the sticky quality of poi. A week of cool wet weather creates ideal conditions for this disease, but increasing air circulation by planting farther apart during winter months can mitigate this problem. New hybrids developed by the University of Hawaii appear to be more tolerant to this disease. By crossing Hawaiian varieties with South Pacific and Asian varieties, hybrids have been created that are more vigorous and can overcome the disease quicker than the Hawaiian varieties. However, when conditions are ideal for the disease, it moves rapidly to affect all varieties, even the hybrids. Stories of ten feet tall plants with 20 pound taro throughout the state derived from these hybrids are not exaggerated. Still, the proof is in the poi, and it’s hard to beat a well grown Hawaiian wetland taro. However upland taro growers are coming close to producing tasty, sticky poi that’s difficult to distinguish from wetland poi.

Bringing the taro to harvest can be a challenge. Among the pests are aphids, ants and mealy bugs, root knot nematodes, and spider mites. The key to controlling most pests is to grow a healthy plant and not allow it to get stressed. For home gardeners, spraying the plants with water early in the day can control many pests, but be sure plants are dry when the sun goes down. Wet plants at night can create fungal and bacterial problems. Adding lots of organic matter prior to planting, planting green manure crops such as sunn hemp as a rotation, and practicing fallow can help to minimize nematodes. It’s also a good idea not to plant in the same area for a year or more to break the pest cycle and give the soil a rest.

You can tell the taro is mature by the size of the huli. After reaching a peak in their height, the plant will drop back and shrink down. The top of the taro corm will start to form a dome. If you have a lot of taro, it’s a good idea to start eating them before they’re fully mature, so when you get to the end of your field, the last taro is not over-mature. Some taro, like Moi or Piko types can be held in the field after maturity while Lehua and Mana need to be harvested when mature or it will start to rot quickly. Growing your own taro can be a very gratifying experience, and even more gratifying when you share it with others.

Mango Season Not Pau

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Community Contributed

By Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent, UH College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources

Mango is called the King of Fruits for good reason. Nothing could be better than an ice cold mango on a hot afternoon. Native to South and Southeast Asia, mango has been cultivated for over 4,000 years, and was introduced into Hawaii in the early 1800s from Mexico. Molokai has an ideal hot, dry growing climate, and the best area is a belt running from Kalamaula to Kamalo. Unfortunately, the further east you go, the windier it gets, and nothing can be more damaging to a potentially great crop of mango than wind blowing off flowers and fruits. On most islands, mango season runs from June to October with the peak in the earlier half of the season, but for Molokai if you look hard enough, you can probably find mango 9 months of the year especially around the Kaunakakai area.

Mango is not without its problems. Of the tens of thousands of flowers it bears, less than a fraction of 1 percent will actually make it to harvest. With the challenges of four to five months of growing from flower to mature fruit, they face serious diseases and other maladies along the way. Powdery mildew, a whitish fungus, favors dry cool weather and can destroy all the flowers. Anthracnose, a blackish fungus that favors wet weather, can destroy both flowers and even mature fruits. The mango weevil will bore into the fruit and seed through the stem or pedicel of the mango, ruining a good mango. Fruit flies, especially the Oriental Fruit Fly, will inject its eggs into a half-ripe or mature fruit and rot it. Another common problem is jelly seed, where the flesh around the seed gets translucent and will ferment, imparting a bad taste to a good mango. After all is said and done, it’s amazing we can still find edible mangoes on our trees.

Mango varieties recommended for Hawaii face rigorous testing at UH Research Stations throughout the state. Unfortunately, we have no research stations on Molokai. Some of the recommended varieties for Hawaii include Fairchild, Gouviea, Harders, Keitt, Manzanillo, Momi K, Pope, Rapoza, and Molokai’s own Ah Ping. These are considered regular bearers, and will bear a good crop each year. Others, such as Haden, have an alternate bearing habit and will bear heavy one year, with a light crop the next. Still, a great Haden is hard to beat. Some varieties, such as Exel, Mapulehu, and Pirie require ideal mango weather only found in Molokai’s mango belt to grow well. In wetter areas, only a few varieties will perform well, including Fairchild and Rapoza since they appear to have some tolerance to anthracnose. New varieties are brought in from Florida and southeast Asia, and some do very well in Hawaii, but until they’re tested over a long period of time, you really cannot determine if they will match up to what we already grow.

There are also many excellent unnamed varieties on Molokai, and part of this is due to the presence of the old Hawaii Sugar Planters Experimental Station at Mapulehu where there are about 40 acres of mango, including many rare Indian varieties, such as Mulgoba, Sandersha, Alphonso, Bombay Green, and others. Many residents have planted seedlings, and now have a new variety. Common mango is still a local favorite because it’s a heavy bearer, will bear off season, can be eaten ripe or picked green and made into pickled mango, a local treat.

A friend, Henry Pali Jr. mentioned to me that he believes mango was the fruit in the Garden of Eden because it made man go. Enjoy it while it lasts, because when there’s no mango, you’ll be craving for just one more.