Urban conversion of Hawaii’s agricultural lands, 1975-89. A. Santos-George, D. D. Tran, C. A. Ferguson and R. L. Bowen. Petitions submitted from 1975 to March 1989 to the Hawaii Land Use Commission (LUC) for reclassification of state Agricultural District lands were analyzed. Results showed nearly 24,000 acres were removed from teh Agricultural District over the period. Farmland conversions rose sharply in the 1980's to approach 3,000 acres per year. The LUC approved an average 80% of the petitions and 74% of the area transferring agricultural land to the Urban District, primarily for housing developments. Oahu recorded the highest rate of urban conversion and a significant loss of high-quality agricultural lands. Coversions increased greatly on Kaui, while Maui's rate of farmland loss fell. Large areas urbanized ont the Big Island were partially offset by additions to the Agricultural District, and little Prime crop land was coverted. Storage of Guinea grass round bales. Tsang Mui Chung, M. and E. Cleveland. Changes in quality of round bales of guinea grass were evaluated in outside storage for 6 months under high rainfall conditions. Five storage methods were compared. Bales stored off the ground and protected fromthe rain remained in good quality. Uncovered bales stored on the ground or elevated exhibited high dry matter losses and substantial reduction in nutritinal value. Effect of ethephon on ripening, seed development,branch growth and leaf abscission of Coffea Arabica L. Crisoto, C. H., P. C. Tausend, M. A. Nagao, L. H. Fuchigami and T. H. H. Chen. Ripening of the coffee fruit trees in Hawaii was stimulated when increasing ethephon concentrations were applied to plants prior to the onset of ripening, but seed dry weight from ethephon ripened fruits ws 18.7% ligher than seeds from nontreated fruits. When 250 mg litter ethephon was applied to fruits at the onset repening, dry weight of seeds from ethephon ripened fruit was 5.6% less than control seeds. The cupping quality of brewed coffee was also lowered with ethephon application. When fruits were treated with 250 mg liter ethephon after 25% of the fruits had rippened, ethephon stimulated rippening of the remaining fruits within 6 days after treatment, and there was no significant difference in dry weight of seeds from ethephon and control treatments. Etephon at 25, 50, 100, 250 and 250 mg liter had no effect on the growth of vegetative, flowering, and fruit branches, however, ethephon at 1000 mg liter was phytotoxix to the branch tips. Leaf abcission on fruit bearing increased with increasing ethephon concentrations. Hypermedia information system for diagnosing common problems of macadamia nut. Kobayashi, K. D., H. C. Bittenbender and H. H. Hirae. A hypermedia program was developed to help extension personnel and growers diagnose common problems of macadamia nut (Macadamia intergrifolia Maiden and Betche). Written to run with HyerCard TM on an Apple Macintosh TM computer, the program enables users to diagnose problems based on illustrations and textual descriptions and to obtain additonal information and possible solutions to these problems. Once-over harvesting of ‘Tendercrop’ bush bean. Kratky, B. A. and G. Stevens. The optimum time for a once-over harvest of "Tendercrop" bush beans was 7 days after the first one-third of the beans were harvestable. Yields of total salable beans were 17 to 30 % lower from the optimum once-over harvest treatments than from plots harvested 3 or 4 times. Design and development of a precooling unit for tropical fruits and vegetables. Noomhorn, A., S. G. Ilangantileke and J. D. Guzman. A precooling unit was designed and developed to evaluate different methods of cooling namely: hydrocooling, air cooling/forced-air cooling, and hydraaircoooling. The unit was mainly used to precool tropical fruits and vegetables having varied and distinct product cooling requirements. Selected fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers, mango and papaya were evaluated using different precooling methods. The most and efficient methods for precooling each product was determined. Results indicated that cucumber, mango and papaya could be best precooled through hyrdraaircooling, hydrocooling and forced-air cooling, respectively. Soil depth characteristics and erosion estimates along the Hamakua coast, Island of Hawaii. Aguilar, R. and Mashuri Waite. Soils were charaterized on steep, cultivated fields for sugarcane (Sachharum officinarum L.) production along the Hamakua Coast on the Island of Hawaii. Study objectives were to determine soil profile characteristics, obtain estimates of annual season erosion rates and assess reductions in profile depth resulting from cultivation. Soil profile thickness, mass quantities of volcani ash parent material, and soil organic C contents were determined for each soil. Annual soil losses (Mg ha-1 yr) from the fields through water erosion were estimated using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). Slope gradients at the sites ranged from 17% to 32%, and depths to bedrock ranged from 0.8 m to 3.2 m. Based on estimated annual soil erosion rates, soil depth reductions ranging from 0.7 cm yr to 6.6 cm yr were calculated for these sites. These annual soil losses would equate to profile dept reductions ranging from 56 cm to as much as 284 cm since the current mechanized croping system was initiated approximately 43-44 years ago. Actual erosion losses at the sites are probably lower than these calculated estimates because the volcanic ash soils have unusually high resiliency to runoff and erosion. Removal of soil from the site during harvest operations further confounds accurate long-term soil profile reduction estimates. Accurate methods for estimating soil loss on steep, cropland soils of volcanic ash origin in Hawaii are needed because deterioratoin of these valuable finite resources must be averted. Back to previous page Back to the Home Page |