Month: November 2010

November 27, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

St. Clement’s to hold Christmas fair

The public is invited to the “Christmas in Bethlehem” Fair at the Parish of St. Clement, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 4 at 1515 Wilder Ave.

The fair will include live Nativity scene pageants, readings and carols, and Bethlehem-themed children’s games, crafts and face painting. Other offerings include a food court including barbecue and Tongan and Mediterranean foods.

The Cherubim Marketplace will feature baked goods, jams and preserves; and the Bazaar will offer unique and handcrafted goods.

Poinsettia plants will be sold for $10 each but can be ordered in advance for $8.

The chance to win trips and luxury items will be available in the Three Kings Silent Auction.

Scrip for food, marketplace and kids games is available in advance at the church office between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.; by calling 955-7745; or e-mailing info@stclem.org.

Religion briefs – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

November 27, 2010 Aquaculture, General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Kauai shrimp farm input still sought

LIHUE, Hawaii (AP) – Kauai environmentalists and business interests are clashing over whether to renew a federal permit that would allow a shrimp farm to continue discharging effluent into the ocean.

Sunrise Capital, a unit of the Missouri-based Integrated Aquaculture International, wants to renew its Environmental Protection Agency permit for a shrimp farm in Kekaha.

Sunrise currently produces white shrimp at its facility, mainly for local consumption and breeding stock for export. The firm has plans to produce everything from kahala, moi, oysters, clams, seaweed and algae to produce jet fuel.

George Chamberlain, a founder of Integrated Aquaculture International, told about 50 people gathered at a public hearing Wednesday that the effluent discharge ”has no impact,” according to the Kauai Garden Island.

Other supporters, who comprised about half of the audience, were focused on economic concerns.

”We need those jobs again,” said Tony Ricci, a resident. He contended critics are blowing out of proportion potential problems with discharges.

But other residents and representatives of environmental groups criticized the permit renewal.

Rayne Regush of the Kauai branch of the Sierra Club said her organization opposes the company’s application. If it were renewed, she said the frequency of monitoring should be increased, water-quality testing should also look for bacteria, and monitoring data should be made available online to the public.

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November 26, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Limited Time to Change Hunting Rules

Conservation Council for Hawaii News Release

The Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources is proposing revisions to Hawaii Administrative Rules relating to hunting and game, and asking the public for their feedback. This is an opportunity to urge the state to change the hunting and game management paradigm to reduce the damage caused by introduced continental feral ungulates and game mammals, and provide more opportunities for hunters to help control animals and bring home the meat.

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November 26, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

To Bee or Not to Bee

By Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent, UH CTAHR Cooperative Extension Service

The relationship between humans and honeybees is ancient, as demonstrated by cave paintings in Spain, South Africa, and Nepal, depicting honey hunters collecting honey from wild hives. The honeybee was introduced to Hawaii in 1857, but the accidental introduction of the Varroa mite in 2007 puts this relationship in jeopardy and is one example of Hawaii’s vulnerability to invasive species.

The Varroa mite (Varroa destructor) is one of the most serious pests of honeybees and is associated with the spread of viruses and the decline of honey bee colonies on the mainland. And it’s only a matter of time before it destroys all feral honeybee colonies in Hawaii. On the island of Oahu alone, over 90 percent of the wild colonies have been wiped out and it has now moved to the Big Island, starting in Hilo. Visual checks of feral honeybees in Ho`olehua and Mo`omomi have not found the Varroa mite to date.

The mites attack both adult bees, and also larvae in the hive. Although honeybees in Hawaii are crosses between German, Italian, and Carnolian bees, the honeybees on Molokai appear to be a special disease resistant strain, first brought in around 1898. They show resistance to a disease called Foul Brood, which wiped out honeybees on most of the islands starting in 1908.

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November 26, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

2010 Molokai Stampede Results

2010 MOLOKAI STAMPEDE RESULTS

Keiki Dummy Roping 2-4 yrs. Buckle donated by Friendly Market Center
1st Place – Ramie Faye Domingo Buckle Winner
2nd Place- Ashton Dudoit

Keiki Dummy Roping 5-9 yrs. Buckle donated by Friendly Market Center
1st Place Meleana Pa-Kala Buckle Winner
2nd Place Lindsey Ann Domingo
2rd Place Noel Tancayo
2th Place Kaya Feldsinger

Keiki Dummy Roping 2-4 yrs. Buckle donated by Friendly Market Center
1st Place Jayden Dudoit-Tabilangan Buckle Winner

Keiki Barrel Racing 2-4 yrs. Buckle donated by Friendly Market Center
1st Place Meleana Tancayo Buckle Winner

Keiki Barrel Racing 5-9yrs. Buckle donated by Friendly Market Center
1. Meleana Pa-Kala Buckle Winner
2.Lane Kamakana
3. Noel Tancayo

Keiki Barrel Racing 10-12yrs Buckle donated by Friendly Market Center
1. Kapua Lee Buckle Winner

Calf Scramble- Buckle donated by Friendly Market Center
1. Noel Tancayo Buckle Winner
2. Kaya Feldsinger
3. Bubu Kamakana

Wahine Barrels Buckle donated by Kapualei Ranch
1. Ryanna Cambra Buckle Winner
2. Real Dudoit

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November 26, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Locally Grown Christmas Trees in Hawaii | Ocean Girl Project Sustainable Surf Camp Blog

Want to buy a locally grown Christmas tree this year, while supporting environmental education in Hawai’i?

Helemano Farms is a family farm in Central O’ahu that offers locally grown Christmas trees that you pick and they cut! The Kokua Hawaii foundation has advanced-sale Helemano Farms Christmas Tree Tickets available online at:

https://www.kokuahawaiifoundation.org/store/item/6770

$10 of that sale will be donated to Kokua Hawai’i Foundation to support environmental education in Hawai’i schools and communities.

For a listing of other organizations you may be able to support through this sale please contact Helemano Farms at www.helemanofarms.com

Locally Grown Christmas Trees in Hawaii | Ocean Girl Project Sustainable Surf Camp Blog

November 25, 2010 Aquaculture, General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Kekaha farm owner has plans for much more than shrimp

WAIMEA — Blessed with some of the purest seawater in the world and sunny growing conditions, the owners of the Kekaha shrimp farm have big plans for their small operation.

Currently producing white shrimp mainly for local consumption and broodstock for export around the world, Sunrise Capital, owned by the Mainland-based Integrated Aquaculture International, has plans to eventually produce everything from kahala, moi, oysters, clams, seaweed, even algae to produce jet fuel.

That makes them, as Dr. Carl Berg of Lihu‘e says, a concentrated aquatic animal production facility, something Dr. George Chamberlain agrees with.

Chamberlain is a director of Integrated Aquaculture International and president of the Global Aquaculture Alliance (gaalliance.org), and conducted a two-hour informational meeting about the Kekaha aquaculture farm at the Waimea Theatre, just before a state Department of Health public hearing on the farm’s application for a permit necessary to discharge farm effluent into the ocean.

The DOH will either approve or deny the continuation of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, required by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and monitored by DOH.

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November 25, 2010 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Kona coffee beans, plants quarantined over pest

KAILUA-KONA (AP) – Coffee plants and unroasted beans from Hawaii’s Big Island are being quarantined in hopes of preventing the spread of a crop-destroying pest from Kona farms to other islands.

The Hawaii Board of Agriculture unanimously approved the emergency quarantine Tuesday due to the coffee berry borer, which has been found in 21 West Hawaii farms but hasn’t been seen on other islands.

The quarantine restricts the movement of coffee plants, plant parts, green beans and bags unless the items are treated with pesticides or heating methods to kill the beetle and its larvae, according to the Department of Agriculture.

”Movement of green beans is restricted unless it’s fumigated,” said Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Janelle Saneishi.

The beetle was first detected in West Hawaii-grown coffee beans in mid-September. Agriculture officials haven’t yet determined how it arrived on the Big Island.

The quarantine could last up to a year. It doesn’t apply to farmers who are sending green beans out of state.

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November 24, 2010 Agriculture Grants, General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

U.S. Forest Service receives $1.6M grant to study hybrid ecosystems in Hawaii

honadv

Invasive species are so pervasive in Hawaii’s low-lying areas that the U.S. Forest Service says it’s not cost-effective or practical to eradicate them all. Instead, it’s launching new research into developing “hybrid ecosystems” that will incorporate some nonnative plants but allow native plants to thrive.

The service has received a $1.6 million grant from the Defense Department’s strategic environmental research program to study the possibility.

“Invasive species are so prevalent. You’re hand weeding, trying to eliminate them and aren’t able to keep up with them. It feels like you’re fighting a losing battle,” said Susan Cordell, research ecologist with the Forest Service. “Restoring these lowland tropical forests to a historic native state is not financially or physically feasible.”

Hawaii’s low-lying native trees and plants were wiped out by cattle, goats and other nonnative mammals that were set free to graze after the arrival of the first Europeans in the islands in the late 1700s. The animals trampled on ferns and undergrowth, drying the soil and tree roots. Later reforestation efforts resulted in the planting of fast-growing nonnative trees like eucalyptus instead of native trees.

To see intact native ecosystems, you have to climb high into the mountains.

Cordell said the grant will allow researchers to find ways for native species to “coexist” with some nonnative species.

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