Planting our ʻulu farm in Hawaiʻi - breadfruit - pana - maʻafala - ʻUlu fiti

[www.dadluvsu.com]

So this is what I've been up to over the past decade...  seemed appropriate to share on this forum since my palm exploits eventually took me down the road to where I have arrived. 

The farm was acquired in 2013.  We are the third recorded owners of this property.  A title search yielded measurements in shipchains detailing the exact location of the parcel originally held by The House of Kamehameha, one owner in between, and now the DeBoe ʻOhana.  This land was in sugar during the plantation era of the islands and has since transitioned into mostly potato and ginger farming which is highly erosive.  My permaculture school of thought sent me down the road of trees and a successful tissue culture program was developed around 10 years ago so several varieties of breadfruit have been focused on for propagation en masse.  Breadfruit is the second most productive plant in the world by weight (bananas the first) and has the potential to feed millions in the tropics.  We have literally walked through fire and never waivered, with hard work and integrity we have arrived at our goals.  Our farm has since been exemplified by The Samoan Ministry of Agriculture, Puerto Rico's College of Agriculture and many other organizations around the globe.  Enough with the blah blah; lets get into the pictures!

 

It started on paper with a good plan.

 

[www.dadluvsu.com]

The plants arrived via courier and were immediately soaked overnight to rehydrate after their long trip from the lab in central Florida.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

So then I planted them out in 1 gallon pots...  equal parts by volume guesstimate of sunshine mix #4, local soil and sand.  Left in 50% shade until large enough to move out.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

These first two trees were planted in honor of my children who are wickedly kept from their loving father.  Isaiah 5:20

[www.dadluvsu.com]

So then I put on the space suit, built a ghetto rig spray boom, and made two applications of herbicide to completely eliminate local grasses and weeds that would have out-competed my cover crops and trees. Used GPS to make sure my applications were precise.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Then I gave the whole field three passes with the disc harrow.  Some of the prior crop of Okinawan Potatoes reseeded themselves.  GPS’d each time cause diesel is expensive.  I did get a little sidetracked and dug a pond and diversion swale to help reroute storm water across my land more passively.  Our record rainfall is something like 54” in a 48 hour period!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

The locals were curious about our actions!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

All this ground work took months, the trees had grown large enough to be brought out of the shadehouse, hardened off, and potted up into 3g grow bags.  With about 730 trees handwatering was becoming burdensome.  Took one person with two hoses about 5 hours daily to keep them sufficiently hydrated.  My barn is built out of the shipping containers we moved here with for scale.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

So I hit once more with herbicide and then began to level the field in preparation for planting.  Needed ideas to make the soil level, simple stuff is always the best.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Got some large lumber to build a drag harrow.  I snagged this 500 lb tire from a road crew for tire flips so it doubled as weight for my sled.  Worked well.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Think I made 3 rough passes and the I removed the tire and skinned the underside of the sled with plywood for the final 2 passes.  Not parking lot smooth but pretty close.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

The fields were just about ready, we had plenty dry weather which was good for soil prep, HORRIBLE for little thirsty trees.  We had a month long drought and terrible winds for weeks.  Hand-watering wasn’t enough, the plants were root bound and there wasn’t much growing media left in each bag.  Ended up having to rehydrate the aquaphobic grow media by submerging each plant in kiddie pools to keep them alive.  Literally one lost one in all the drama.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

We need to get them planted but still had a few more tasks before it was time.  Used my phone compass and about 4 miles of mason’s twine to layout the rows in accordance with the sun’s path and special attention for our trade winds.  Breadfruit loves water but suffers from funguses easily; drying winds are welcome in a place where it rains over 15 feet annually.  The rows didn’t exactly meet my plan on paper but they were 28 feet wide, carefully planned with tractor width and mower deck width in mind for maintenance.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Once I knew where the rows where going to be, I modified the drag harrow by adding some nut and bolt “teeth” to the front to act as a scarifier and kept the ply wood intact to cover the seeds in one pass.  I planted thousands of pound of cowpea, pigeon pea, lab lab and sunnhemp in the rows and annual ryegrass in the alleys to make sure there was cover.  Rigged up a rope to an atv seeder and set it on an aluminum hitch mounted cargo rack that I had.  Wasn’t pretty but it got the job done.  Made a plywood deflector to aim the seeds fairly precisely.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Made a spacing gauge our of rope and pvc and used marking flags to indicate site for each tree, 30 foot spacing.  This was important...  it took 3 people 6 weeks to plant all the trees during which time the cover crops filled in and without flagging we would have had a very hard time trying to measure locations.  

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Tooled up and ready to plant!  Most important tool in the planter’s wagon was the Bluetooth speaker!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

So layout the trees first.  Auger to dig a hole (45 gallon pot with bottom cut off to keep dirt out of my shoes and near site), the use the three prong cultivator to scarify and prevent glazing.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

After I planted and backfilled Tutu and Lola (the ghetto golf cart truck wannabe) placed cardboard or paper held in place with rocks. Served as moisture retention and weed barrior.  

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Then G-Pop would come though with the Mulch-Master 5000  and drop 6” or so or well composted mulch.  Probably had about 130 yards for this task...

[www.dadluvsu.com]

First two trees for Ron and Katie.  First day finished!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Repeat repeat repeat 650 times.  Hard work for us all.

 

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Some of the rows were long, mentally tough to keep pushing. We didn’t quit, we never quit.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

We finished on a Saturday evening and awoke Sunday morning to this.  Nobody can say we aren’t remembered to me.  

[www.dadluvsu.com]

The cover crops began to fill in nicely, had to shoot a plague of pigeons over my seed.  Wish they tasted better, pigs ate em.  Fungus began to break down the mulch and feed the trees.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Added some interplantings of sugar and coconut.  Even got Uncle Jim to help G-Pop!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Made a gauge for the tractor and set the initial alley widths.  Each alley is 4 passes from tractors rotary mower or zero turn mower.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

I mow the grasses to different heights and frequencies as a bug and moisture conservation strategy, for carbon acquisition, plus I save fuel; super Bonus!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Originally I removed encroaching plants manually but now use the zero turn mower to “ring the trees”.  We have applied mulch on several occasions, our local community has a mulch program that is invaluable; this farmer utilizes it.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

When the trees reached sufficient size I pruned the central leader; I intend to keep these trees no higher than 25’.  Too difficult and unsafe to pick fruit much higher than that.  Careful sterilization of pruning saw between each tree to prevent cross-contamination..

[www.dadluvsu.com]

Couple years later!!!!

[www.dadluvsu.com]

We got plenty ‘ulu! 

[www.dadluvsu.com]

It is amazing blessing.  We are honored to take care of this land.  We are it's children.

[www.dadluvsu.com]

And lastly here’s a winning recipe I made for anyone who likes to eat! 

[Funkthulhu]

This was a great series of posts, I greatly enjoyed the photographic detail.  Thank you for posting this!  (now I gotta find breadfruit seeds....)

[Jerry@TreeZoo]

Bill,

 

Outstanding!  I am proud to know you and glad to see you have been very busy these past few years.  Knowing how meticulous you are, I was still surprised at the detail of planning and thought you put into this.  BRAVO!

 

Now for the Chocolate and Sandalwood groves!

[jimmyt]

Congratulations to you!  That was a helluva journey you took to make your dream a reality.  

[Xenon]

Love the progression pics and commentary. I have a similar dream but with durians and coffee haha 

[Chester B]

Thank you for the post, it was very enjoyable and interesting.

[Kailua_Krish]

Thanks for sharing! What a beautiful farm

[realarch]

Just astounding Bill! The vision, passion, methods and materials, and above all, the hard work. Speechless.

Some friends of ours were recently relating to us seeing a spectacular ulu farm, (plantation?), on a trip up north on Hawaii island. It’s gotta be your place. They are farmers as well and have an impressive cacao operation up and running. We get to help sample and give opinions on new products the creative owners are experimenting with. We are happy to oblige. 

Best of luck and good fortune with you and your families endeavor. The fact that you found time to plant some palms makes it that more impressive.

Tim