Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer
WHEN RICHARD Padgette, new owner of Green Castles in St Mary, decided that he would pursue ecotourism interests instead of the traditional areas of agriculture for which the property had developed a reputation, he offered some of the workers a chance to buy into those areas.
Lloyd Pringle, who was managing the orchid operation, jumped at the opportunity to go into business and with his wife, Shana, bought out the operation and leased some of the land. That was three years ago.
“Most of the houses were at the stage that they needed replanting and so we brought in new plants and replanted. The houses are just coming back into production and we have three acres of cut flowers and half an acre of potted plants. The cut flowers are grown for reaping the blooms alone while the potted plants are sold whole,” Pringle explained.
Orchids are a year-round business, with peak periods such as Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Christmas and Secretaries Day and the Pringles sell right across the island, from Negril Point to St Thomas in the east. They use courier services to facilitate delivery to the distant wedding coordinators, event planners and florists who support the business, while for neighbouring parishes, such as St Andrew and Kingston, they make the deliveries.
Business could be better if he could only get the orchids to cooperate by blooming in sync with the demand for them, but Pringle says that, try as he might, the flowers just won’t cooperate.
At Mexican seed center, search is on for crops that can handle more extreme weather
EL BATAN, MEXICO – More than 500 years after Spanish priests brought wheat seeds to Mexico to make wafers for the Catholic Mass, those seeds may bring a new kind of salvation to farmers hit by global warming.
Scientists working in the farming hills outside Mexico City found the ancient wheat varieties have particular drought- and heat-resistant traits, including longer roots that suck up water and a capacity to store more nutrients in their stalks.
They are crossing the plants with other strains developed at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in El Batan to grow types of wheat that can fight off the ill effects of rising temperatures around the world.
“It’s like putting money in the bank to use, in this case, for a not rainy day,” scientist Matthew Reynolds said of the resilient Mexican wheats his team collected.
Seed breeders say they are the first line of defense protecting farmers from climate change, widely expected to cause average global temperatures to rise between 1 and 3 degrees over the next 50 years. As a result, intensified drought, together with more intense and unpredictable rainfall, could hit crop yields and lead to food shortages and spikes in commodity prices.
Video: Farmer on a mission rides tractor to Capitol Hill
John Boyd, the president of the Black Farmers Association, is protesting the non-payment of black farmers in a $1.15 billion case settled years ago by driving his tractor to Capitol Hill. The compensation is for thousands of black farmers who were denied government loans because of their race. (Anna Uhls/The Washington Post)
Mango Season Not Pau
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.
Backyard Aquaponics Shows Promise, Kitsap Couple Says » Kitsap Sun
PORT ORCHARD
Eighty rainbow trout go into a frenzy as Rene LaMarche sprinkles food pellets into their 300-gallon tank. The surface of the water erupts in turbulence as the fish feed with noisy gulps.
The trout have a symbiotic relationship with garden vegetables floating on rafts in LaMarche’s backyard. The process, called aquaponics, marries aquaculture (fish-rearing) with hydroponics (growing plants without soil).
Fish waste, converted to non-toxic fertilizer, feeds the plants. The plants clear the water of fertilizer and it is returned clean to the tank.
LaMarche and his wife Linda of Sunnyslope are excited about the technology, which they learned about on vacation in Hawaii. Aquaponics has great potential as a sustainable food source, say LaMarche and his mentor Clyde Tamaru of the University of Hawaii. But for both, it’s been a rapid learning curve.
An Inquisitive Mind
The LaMarches earlier this year traveled to Oahu, where Linda grew up. By chance, they chatted with a resident Hawaiian about aquaponics. Intrigued, Rene LaMarche got on the Internet, searched the term, and he was hooked.
He found the technique was being heavily explored in the Virgin Islands and Hawaii, both island cultures seeking to reduce their dependence on imported food. He saw potential for adapting the technology to the Northwest.
Sequencing of cacao genome will help US chocolate industry, subsistence farmers – ScienceNewsline
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their partners have announced the preliminary release of the sequenced genome of the cacao tree, an achievement that will help sustain the supply of high-quality cocoa to the $17 billion U.S. chocolate industry and protect the livelihoods of small farmers around the world by speeding up development, through traditional breeding techniques, of trees better equipped to resist the droughts, diseases and pests that threaten this vital agricultural crop.
The effort is the result of a partnership between USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS); Mars, Inc., of McLean, Va., one of the world’s largest manufacturers of chocolate-related products; scientists at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown , N.Y.; and researchers from the Clemson University Genomics Institute, the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, Washington State University, Indiana University, the National Center for Genome Resources, and PIPRA (Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture) at the University of California-Davis.
Team leaders from USDA included molecular biologist David Kuhn and geneticist Raymond Schnell, both at the ARS Subtropical Horticulture Research Station in Miami, Fla., and ARS computational biologist Brian Scheffler at the Jamie Whitten Delta States Research Center in Stoneville, Miss. ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of USDA. This research supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security, and USDA’s commitment to agricultural sustainability.
Organic Program Chopped
The state’s only organic-certifying body, the Hawaii Organic Farmers Association (HOFA), will suspend its program this month, forcing organic farmers in Hawaii to look to the mainland for certification.
Rising costs and a limited client pool prompted the Hilo-based group to end certification, which it began in 1993. HOFA certifies a bounty of products – from coffee to herbs to beer.
“Part of the reason HOFA is not surviving is that we didn’t charge enough,” said Sarah Townsend, HOFA’s certification coordinator. “We’re not big enough to sustain ourselves.”
Some organic farmers on Molokai worry certification from the mainland will come at a higher cost.
“It’s hard enough trying to make a living farming and now we have to go to the mainland?” said Rick Tamanaha of Kaleikoa Farms, an organic papaya farm in Ho`olehua.
Tamanaha’s farm was certified organic by HOFA in October 2007, and he has renewed his certification through the organization every year since. The organic label, he said, allows his farm to compete with non-organic farms that sell at lower costs.
Egg centennial – Peterson Farm prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary
A dozen eggs in the supermarket is the easiest thing to just grab and go — no pulling a number, no bagging, no-brainer. Several decades ago, that was just fine, because most of what customers pulled from shelves were local eggs.
Today, if we care about where our food comes from, we don’t have the luxury of not paying attention. And anyone who pays attention has heard lots about sustainability, food safety and keeping money in the local economy.
But there are other reasons to buy local: to preserve the culture of Hawaii farms and support those who’ve put generations into providing sustenance to our community.
One such place is Petersons’ Upland Farm in Wahiawa, a longtime egg farm where a majestic hen house the length of a football field stands a story high on stilts. It is home to the farm’s more than 9,000 egg layers, who sit inside enjoying the tradewinds.
“My uncle designed that hen house and it amazes me every day,” says Sharon Peterson Cheape, the farm’s assistant manager. “My brother and I and my cousins helped with installation. We learned electrical, construction, installation and plumbing, all on that house.”
Peterson Cheape is the third generation of Petersons to run the farm, one of four remaining egg farms on Oahu. She’s a classic country girl: down-to-earth, generous, and kind to friends and strangers alike.
Egg centennial
BUYING LOCAL
Oahu has four egg farms, three of which sell directly to customers. Visit www.islandfresheggs.com for more information.
» KK Poultry Farm Egg Store (41-656 Kakaina St., Waimanalo, 259-7832): 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays to Saturdays; 7:30 a.m. to noon Sundays
» Maili Moa Farm Egg Shop (87-136 Kaukamana Road, Waianae, 696-3823): 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays and 8 a.m. to noon Sundays
» Petersons’ Upland Farm (141 Dole Road, 621-6619): 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays
» Mikilua Poultry Farm: Supplies local supermarket under the brands Hawaiian Maid, Ka Lei, Maili and Times
UNDERSTANDING eggs
» Eggs keep about three to four weeks in the refrigerator.
» Tell a fresh egg from an older one by cracking it open. If the white, called the albumen, stands up high, it is fresh; if the albumen spreads, it is likely an older egg.
» There is no nutritional difference between white and brown eggs. Brown eggs simply cost more because brown hens are bigger birds and eat more food to produce the same amount of eggs.
» Daily egg consumption is not linked to the risk of heart attack in healthy adults, probably because blood cholesterol, rather than dietary cholesterol, has the biggest impact on heart health. Cholesterol in the diet has only a minor effect on blood cholesterol level.
» Eggs are an excellent source of choline, a vital nutrient used by all cells in the body, especially brain cells that require it for neurotransmitter formation. Choline also contributes to fetal brain development — adequate intake of choline reduces the risk of birth defects.
Source: Sharon Peterson Cheape and Joannie Dobbs