Ka`u Calendar News Briefs Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016

      “It is important to clean up your field by removing or strip-picking any cherry and raisins that would have otherwise been left on the trees at the end of the harvest season,” Andrea Kawabata said. “Do this prior to pruning so that coffee is not left in the field. In addition, note down the date of your first coffee flowering. This would mean that the flowering was large enough to warrant a future harvest.

UH-CTAHR encourages Ka`u Coffee growers to continue battling coffee berry borers.

      “Sampling and monitoring for CBB activity should start between 60 and 90 days after flowering (your noted date). However, in Hawai`i and with such high CBB pressure and population, monitoring can start as early as 30 days after flowering. Remember that rain tends to trigger CBB to begin actively looking for new cherry to infest and that the goal is to kill CBB before they damage the coffee bean.
      “Dissecting the bean and looking for bean damage will help you to determine if you’ve been successful.”
      If stump pruning, growers may consider keeping a nurse vertical, particularly in higher elevations and on older or less vigorous trees.
      Kawabata also asks growers to participate in an ongoing survey. The survey is a CBB and coffee informational exchange approach from CTAHR extension.
      “Please help us to better understand coffee berry borer and to coordinate areawide CBB control activities in Hawai`i by telling us what is going on at your farm on a weekly basis,” Kawabata said. “We will summarize results and post them and possible CBB management strategies in that area on the hawaiicoffee.weebly.com website. We need TMK information so that CBB can be tracked by area, but only aggregate information will be released.”
      The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete once each week. Each time participants submit information, they will be entered into a monthly drawing for a $10 gift card to KTA, Choicemart, Foodland or Island Naturals.
      This project begins with information from the week of Jan. 3, 2016. See surveymonkey.com/r/PWBB8Z5.
      CBB management information can be found at http://hawaiicoffee.weebly.com/cbb-management.html.
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Map from Hawai`i County Civil Defense shows confirmed, suspect and negative cases of dengue fever.

RICHARD HA IS CLOSING HIS FARM. Ha, owner of Hamakua Springs Country Farms, is known in Ka`u for promoting an energy cooperative as an alternative to privately owned Hawai`i Electric Light Co. He is a founding member of Hawai`i Island Energy Cooperative. 

      Ha’s major crop is bananas. He had also grown tomatoes but stopped that venture several months ago. Leading up to the farm closing down, Ha had to stop funding a profit-sharing plan, then had to cut some medical benefits for his employees and most recently cut wages.

The Ha family is closing operations at Hamakua Springs Country Farms. Photo from Richard Ha

      “It’s all related to the price of oil,” Ha said. “As the oil price has risen, folks that could pass on the cost did, but farmers cannot. When the oil price dropped recently, the cost of fertilizer, plastic, all sorts of things that have oil petroleum costs embedded in their prices, didn’t come down with it. Those costs stayed up.
      “The oil price will go back up again, and anticipating that, we had to make a decision. It’s not that we’re going bankrupt – we’re not. We just need to do what we need to do before it gets to that point.”
      Ha said a group applying for a license to grow and distribute medical marijuana is interested in leasing land. He said the group agreed to offer his employees jobs and provide security “so I can ensure that the community feels safe.”
      He compared his decision to Alexander & Baldwin’s recent announcement that it is transitioning out of sugar on Maui. “‘Transition’ is the right word for what we’re doing, too” Ha said. “We don’t know exactly what the transition will look like, but we’ll still be around. The land that was in bananas is going to go into corn. A dairy that already leases land from us to grow corn is going to take the rest of that land and plant more.”
      See hamakuasprings.com.
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BASKETBALL SEASON IS IN FULL SWING for Ka`u High Trojans.
      Girls started the New Year hosting Honoka`a on Monday, Jan. 4 with a loss of 20-52.
      On Thursday, Jan. 7 at Kealakehe, JV won 35-27, but varsity lost 17-62.
      Yesterday, JV won again at HPA 27-24, and varsity rebounded from previous losses to win 36-33.
      Following their busy first week of 2016, the Trojan Wahine travel to Hilo on Friday Jan. 15.
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KA`U RESIDENTS CAN REGISTER for upcoming classes sponsored by the College of Continuing Education and Community Service at University of Hawai`i-Hilo.