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A Garden Grows in The Desert |
Alongside a cornucopia of strawberries, lettuce, asparagus, Hawaiian gourds, tomatoes, pineapples, and papayas, workmen are digging ditches to plant Portuguese grapevines. Producing multiple harvests each year of cold, temperate, and tropical fruits and vegetables, the ,garden is hailed as a breakthrough in tropical agriculture - a "Blue-Green Revolution."
For the first time since its founding in 1990, the Common Heritage Corporation (CHC) will open its cooperative garden for public demonstration on January 31 at Kona's Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii. The garden plot has yielded more than 100 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs - all having a su rprisingly high sugar content and aroma. "All we do is bring deep ocean water to the surface," said John Craven, CHC founder and president. "Nature does the rest."
The garden uses cold seawater pumped from an ocean depth of 2,000 feet and plumbed in irrigation pipes embedded in the soil at root depth. As the tropical sun heats the pipes, the naturally-occurring freshwater condensation irrigates the crops. But far more is happening beneath the garden's surface.
The wide temperature difference between the tropical climate and the cold seawater pipes pumps nutrients into the plant, stimulating growth, much like Mother Nature does in spring . or fall. But it also seems to speed up the process, possibly stimulating early fruiting-, especially in pineapples - which are growing to maturity in I 0 months rather than the usual two years. Exploiting the biophysical applications of cold, gardeners can induce and break dormancy in a plant at any time. This manipulation produces three or four annual harvest cycles in one year - a veritable "Super Spring" 365 days a year.
In charge of this Super Spring is gardener John Biloon, who is planting new crops, such as tapioca, tulips, and breadfruit, as well as experimenting with organic fertilizers, weed
suppressants, and beneficial insects. While trying to minimize damage from wind and salt spray, Biloon is also trying to maximize the retention of soil moisture by measuring the benefits gained from the cold water pipes placed at various depths in the garden. "The environment of innovation is the exciting part of working at the garden," Biloon said. "Plus. the food is great."
And where does the seawater go after it completes its cycle through the garden's irrigation pipes? Rich Bailey, an aquaculture extension agent with UH Sea Grant, offers a surprisingly new use that integrates crop growing with fish farming. Tapping into the garden's drain line, Bailey will use the seawater to fill aquaculture tanks where he will grow cold-water species of fish and seaweed. "This is a switch in the traditional integration of aquaculture and agriculture, whereby aquaculture effluent is used to irrigate crops," Bailey said. "Here, the same cold seawater that causes condensation on the pipes under the garden, comes out of the pipes as "virgin seawater," still unused and bacteria free."
Clean, cold deep-ocean water also presents advantages in raising seafood crops, such as steelhead trout, salmon, sturgeon, and shellfish. According to Bailey, cold-water algal species, or seaweed, are promising aquaculture candidates. Usually found in temperate climates with less sun, these types of seaweed may grow faster in cold water under the tropical sun.
"The benefits are freshwater and agriculture in areas that are not normally cultivated," Bailey said. "This could be a boon to and areas that have limited freshwater but have access to nearshore deep water, such as West 0'ahu and Waianae."
In line with the Common Heritage Corporation's mission to establish self-sufficient, sustainable communities in coastal zones and islands having access to deep ocean water, its cooperative garden and its integrated aquaculture tanks are the first steps. The January 31 garden demonstration will be dedicated to Hawaii State Senator Richard Matsuura, a champion of the "Blue-Green Revolution."
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