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Big Isle project yields fast-growing crops |
1. It ripened in 10 months instead of the usual two years. 2. This pineapple grew on a lava-bound Kona seacoast instead of up in the hills, where pineapples are supposed to grow.
Lynn pronounced the sugar pineapple delicious. But then, it was her pineapple. Someone else who tasted the pineapple found it a little bland - but exceptionally tender. Even the core could be eaten.
What made Lynn's pineapple unique is that it was the first taste of a crop grown by a revolutionary technique one pineapple expert said isn't supposed to work. The secret is thermal energy.
It's what makes the clouds form, the winds blow, the tides rise and makes San Francisco foggy - temperature variation.
But it's never been used to grow pineapples, explained John Craven, the University of Hawaii professor who dreamed up the OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion) station at Keahole, on the Big Island.
He said the original idea was to generate electricity by pumping cold water from the deep ocean offshore. The difference in temperature with surface water creates thermal energy that can be converted to electric power.
Craven said he believes the cold water may eventually be used more profitably to grow crops then to generate electricity.
He experimented first with strawberries. He said he tried strawberries because they are a spring crop and everybody knows that things grow more vigorously in the spring, when the plants warm in the sun and the ground is still cool.
The difference in temperature creates thermal energy that pumps nutrients from the roots into the plant. That's why things grow fastest in the spring, he said.
Strawberries planted in soil cooled by pipes filled with cold running water grew at amazing speed, even on the blistering hot Kona Coast in the middle of an old lava flow.
Next, one of Craven's gardeners planted temperate zone crops - potatoes and artichokes. They grew much faster than normal. Recently, Craven pulled a carrot 1-1/2 feet long. It grew in record time.
The current gardener is John Biloon, who has a truck farm in Kona Mauka where he grows pineapples, papaya and other crops.
Ten months ago he planted some pineapples and papaya in the experimental plot on the lava by the ocean. Craven said he had never thought of growing tropical crops in cold solid.
To help pay expenses, he asked friends to date $25 to the experiment. In return, each investor will get a ripe pineapple. Lynn, a certified U.S. Navy deep sea diver, got the first pineapple on Friday.
Craven said he was surprised at how well both the pineapples and papayas grew. He told a member of his church, retired pineapple expert Paul Ekern, about the project.
Ekern told him it was impossible because pineapples are bromeliads that grow from the leaves, not the roots. Lynn's pineapple had long roots that were wrapped around the cold water pipe.
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