Rice, a traditional Kauai crop, is still grown here — primarily for research. Adam Killermann just planted a couple of acres of rice in a field near Lihue — continuing a decades-old Kauai’s agricultural tradition. A lot of folks, aware
Rice, a traditional Kauai crop, is still grown here — primarily for research.
Adam Killermann just planted a couple of acres of rice in a field near Lihue — continuing a decades-old Kauai’s agricultural tradition.
A lot of folks, aware of the Haraguchi family’s renovation of the old rice mill in Hanalei, know that Kauai was once a big commercial rice producer. The Hanalei rice fields have long been placed back into the production of taro, although the Haraguchis are considering replanting some of their taro loi in rice.
There’s still rice being grown elsewhere on the island — albeit in small patches.
In recent years the research firm BASF Plant Science has grown rice on leased land on the Westside of the island, although it recently completed its harvest and doesn’t have any planted at this time. BASF site leader Steve Lupkes said the most recent crop was genetically engineered to increase yields.
The rice Killermann is growing is not genetically engineered.
“This is traditional plant breeding. Each year we grow thousands of breeding lines developed by rice breeders for the California Cooperative Rice Research Foundation,” he said.
The few that make the grade and become varieties (48 since 1969) will be marketed as Calrose rice, but there’s also some basmati and jasmine, aromatic long grains.
The winter rice work was done for the foundation for many years in Wailua by an arm of the University of Hawaii, but in recent years has been done by private farmers. Killermann’s agricultural firm AJAR is the latest of them. His area supervisor on the project is Maxwell Manera.
The nonprofit rice research foundation is the research arm of the California rice growing industry, and it is funded by that state’s rice growers. They grow winter crops of rice varieties in Hawaii, since it tends to be too cold for the crop in California winters.
It can take as much as 10 years to develop a new commercial rice variety, and the ability to grow a crop in winter in Hawaii can cut the cycle time in half, he said.
Breeders are looking for many different traits as they seek new varieties for the industry.
“Important breeding objectives include the incorporation of cooking and grain quality, disease resistance, high grain and milling yield, seedling vigor, cold tolerance, early maturity, semi-dwarf plant type and lodging resistance into future rice varieties,” says the industry website. (Lodging is the tendency of a plant to fall over due to its own weight or wind and rain.)
Killermann has several fields that will be flooded like a taro patch once the new rice seedlings are 4 or 5 inches tall. The flooding keeps weeds down. The crop takes about five months to mature.
Breeders will return to Kauai in March to inspect and select their preferred lines. Those rice seeds will be shipped to California for further varietal development.
Some of the rice is directly planted in the field. Some are seeds from hand cross pollination and are planted in pots to be transplanted into the field later.
Killermann said the fields will be entirely tented with fabric mesh as the rice gets ready to produce seeds — to keep birds out. Birds, which eat rice grains, have long been a major problem for rice growers.
It is all part of the remarkable diversity of agriculture on the island. While Kauai’s economy is more dependent on tourism than any other Hawaiian county, its diversified agriculture ventures are holding on, and in some cases even growing. Our island’s agricultural industry is supported by a number of organizations, among them the Kauai County Farm Bureau and the Family and Friends of Agriculture.
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Jan TenBruggencate is a communications consultant, author and retired newspaper reporter who lives on Kauai. He is also a canoe paddler, beekeeper and active volunteer.
