Month: July 2011

July 14, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

A foundation for outreach

Maui National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters and Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center

CLICK for Kealia Pond bird images.

CLICK image above to view new Gallery

Click for New Kealia Pond bird gallery.

The 7,500-square-foot building currently under construction near the Kihei end of Piilani Highway is scheduled to be completed by early fall. Refuge manager Glynnis Nakai said the $5 million project is federally funded. About half the building will be used for office space and the other half as an exhibit hall, she said. The hall will include interpretive panels and house the facility’s developing education program. Nakai said that in the future she and her staff hope to develop a volunteer program and “Friends of Kealia Pond” group to expand the refuge’s outreach, and perhaps staff the exhibit hall.

A foundation for outreach – Mauinews.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Visitor’s Information – The Maui News

July 14, 2011 Gardening, General Ag News and Notes, Vegtables Post a Comment

Celery root may be daunting, but it can rewarding to have in your garden

Discover celery root in a produce bin and it will not be love at first sight. What, you ponder, would anyone do with these bumpy beige orbs, from which someone has removed the nice green tops?

Pull one out of the ground and you’ll be even more daunted, faced with a tangle of gnarly roots. But persevere. Chop off those tentacles with a large knife or cleaver, and then keep chopping until all the bumps and soil-choked crevices are gone. By now the thing might be half its original weight and size. Scrub it some more, then chop it up, boil it and puree it with a little cream. Then you will see why my friend C.R. Lawn of Fedco Seeds calls it “the frog prince of vegetables.” Imagine a pile of very smooth mashed potatoes with the flavors of celery and parsley and a bit of sweetness — so rich and elegant it doesn’t need butter.

Celery root is a celery plant that’s been bred not for succulent, crunchy stalks, but for its root or, more accurately, a tuberlike enlarged stem base. (Its top growth can be used to season a soup but is not tender enough for nibbling.) Other names for it include celeriac, turnip-rooted celery and knob celery. In Europe, where it is more popular and better known than stem celery, it’s often grated or julienned and used raw in a salad, absorbing the dressing like a sponge.

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July 14, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Kauai Lagoons has plan to protect endangered species during construction

The federal government is accepting public comment on a plan by Kauai Lagoons to protect endangered and threatened species from harm while it builds nearly 800 new residential units and a new golf clubhouse on its resort property in Lihue.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Tuesday it will accept comments through Aug. 26. The plan is available at the agency’s website for the Pacific Islands and through its Honolulu office.

Some of the development will replace structures damaged by Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

Part of the plan calls for the resort to help the state move endangered nene geese from the property to Maui and the Big Island. The state is moving the birds to take them away from the path of airplanes using Lihue airport.

Kauai Lagoons has plan to protect endangered species during construction – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

July 13, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Maui man sentenced to 12 years for Ponzi scheme

A Maui accountant who led a long-running Ponzi scheme that cost his investors $8 million is being sentenced to serve nearly 12 years imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

U.S. District Judge David Ezra handed down the sentence Wednesday against 61-year-old Lloyd Y. Kimura, who previously pleaded guilty.

Kimura, the brother of Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney Jay Kimura, told the judge he’s sorry for his crimes.

Kimura used his business, Maui Industrial Loan and Finance Co., to attract investments since 1986, with money collected by later customers used to pay initial clients.

Kimura was ordered to repay his 50 victims the $8 million they lost.

His assets amount to only a fraction of the amount he owes, so his income will be garnished after he’s released from prison.

Maui man sentenced to 12 years for Ponzi scheme – Hawaii News – Staradvertiser.com

July 13, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Island brews

Hawaii’s no different from any other place in the country when it comes to coffee lovers: Step into any Starbucks and you’ll see — we’ve got lots of ’em. And yet, we’re not like everywhere else because we’re the only state in the nation that grows coffee.

Viewed from that perspective, those long lines at chain coffee bars with their non-Hawaii coffees seem nonsensical. Shouldn’t Hawaii people be drinking Hawaii coffee?

Thankfully, a host of venues in Hawaii do offer locally grown coffees.

But there’s a new shop, just 4 months old, that is taking Hawaii coffee to a whole new level on Oahu.

Beach Bum Café, run by owner Dennis McQuoid out of a storefront in the Executive Centre on Bishop Street, is cutting-edge in what it offers: a selection of 100 percent Hawaii coffees and a choice of five brewing methods.

He calls his place a “microbrew” coffee house, meaning he grinds beans upon order and brews one cup at a time. This ensures the freshest cup possible.

McQuoid offers eight single-estate coffees at any given time, and he keeps just a two-week supply to ensure freshness.

McQuoid also offers a generous helping of customer service. He starts by helping patrons make selections based on their preferences.

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July 12, 2011 Ag Tourism, General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Tourists feared exposed to fatal Australia virus

SYDNEY – AUSTRALIAN health officials urged tourists who visited a popular adventure ranch west of the Great Barrier Reef at the weekend to come forward after a horse died from from the killer Hendra virus.

Passed from fruit bats (flying foxes) to horses and highly fatal to humans, Hendra claimed the life of a horse at the Blazing Saddles adventure farm on Monday, west of the Reef gateway city Cairns.

At least six people were known to have had contact with the sick animal and Queensland health officials said they were working to determine how many others could have been exposed at the popular tourist site.

‘I would like to reassure any tourists or visitors to the property over the weekend that transmission of the virus requires close contact with body fluids of the sick horse,’ said Queensland health chief Jeannette Young.

‘Queensland Health staff will continue to undertake contact tracing work to ensure all people potentially exposed to the sick horse have been identified.

Anyone who had visited the ranch since last Thursday and had concerns were urged to call the public health hotline, she said. ‘Queensland Health stands ready to provide any assistance, counselling, information, testing or treatment that may be required,’ added Dr Young. — AFP

Tourists feared exposed to fatal Australia virus

July 10, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Qatari sheik takes endangered macaw under his wing

AL-SHEEHANIYA, Qatar — Cobalt-plumed and flapping, Jewel, a young Spix’s macaw, hops into a plastic bowl. She’s well trained in the routine. Her handler, Ryan Watson, sets the bowl on a scale. He’s pleased. The 4-month-old parrot is growing.

If Jewel continues to thrive, Watson will soon move her and a companion — a second young macaw shrieking at the far end of the pair’s long enclosure — to a larger aviary, where they will flock with others of their kind.

Though the distance of the move will be short, it has far-reaching implications: It will foster fledgling hope that this rarest of parrots can be saved. Just 76 of the handsome blue birds — endemic to northern Brazil but unseen there in 11 years — are known to exist, all in captivity. Watson was hired by a member of Qatar’s royal family, Sheik Saoud bin Mohammed bin Ali al-Thani, to rescue the species from the edge of extinction and send it soaring back into the Brazilian jungle.

It’s an audacious plan in an improbable locale, this oil-and-gas-rich kingdom on the Arabian Peninsula. With no signs marking it in the flat, arid landscape, a fenced private wildlife compound extends across 1.6 square miles about 20 miles west of the capital, Doha.

Al-Wabra Wildlife Preservation began as a private menagerie with a questionable past. But it has been transformed into an intensive conservation operation.

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July 10, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

Tiny snails survive digestion by birds

Snails are able to survive intact after being eaten by birds, according to scientists.

Japanese white-eyes on the island of Hahajima, Japan feast on tiny land snails.

Researchers found that 15% of the snails eaten survived digestion and were found alive in the birds’ droppings.

This evidence suggests that bird predation could be a key factor in how snail populations spread.

The Japanese white-eye or mejiro is widespread in Japan but considered an invasive species in Hawaii

It is well known that plant seeds are dispersed by birds that eat fruit.

But in findings published in the Journal of Biogeography, researchers from Tohoku University, Japan investigated whether invertebrates could also spread in this way.

Previous research has shown that ponds snails can survive being eaten by fishes but the same was not known for land snails.

Studies of the diets of birds on the island of Hahajima identified the Japanese white-eye’s preference for the tiny land snail Tornatellides boeningi.

In the lab scientists fed the birds with the snails to find out whether any survived the digestive process.

“We were surprised that a high rate, about 15 percent, of snails were still alive after passing through the gut of [the] birds,”

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July 10, 2011 General Ag News and Notes Post a Comment

County, Life of the Land to intervene in wind case

The Public Utilities Commission has allowed Maui County and the organization Life of the Land to become intervenors in Hawaiian Electric Co.’s proposal to charge customers for a $4 million study on “Big Wind.”

Henry Curtis of Life of the Land said customers should not be forced to finance the studies, because past rulings by the PUC clearly ordered HECO to evaluate alternatives to the massive wind-power project. The commission’s decision and order, which was signed Wednesday, said HECO’s review of the project should have also evaluated alternatives such as expanding residential or large-scale photovoltaic systems, biomass, biofuel and concentrated solar energy.

But although they granted the interventions, the commission also cautioned Life of the Land and the county that their involvement would be limited to the issues currently on the table.

“The commission will preclude any effort by them to unreasonably broaden the issues,” the decision stated.

It then inserted a curious and unusual note that the commissioners said they expect the intervenors “will comply with the commission’s rules and orders.”

County Energy Coordinator Doug McLeod said the language was “interesting,” but he believes there will be some latitude “in what we can legitimately discuss.”

The county’s principal concern from the start, he said, has been “the lack of community benefits from Big Wind.”

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