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Apples in Hawaii, at Uncle Ken's Corner Table
Aloha Everyone!
11/5/08 - The other day, as I was browsing through the produce section of the local Super Market, I was amazed and confused at the varieties of Apples from which you could choose. Not only Red and Golden Delicious Apples, but Granny Smith, Braeburn, Gala, Fuji, Pacific Rose, Red Rome, Jonathan, Mutsu, Jonagold, Pippin and Macintosh, to name a few. Each apple has its own characteristics and uses, whether for eating fresh, or for baking or pies, or for apple sauce or cider.
We have such a bounty of fruits that are so fresh that we often don't realize the great distances that these fruits travelled to reach our markets. The fruits came from New Zealand, from Chile, from Mexico, from Japan as well as from the U.S. mainland in refrigerated container ships or by air. In the olden days, fruits took weeks in the warm cargo holds of slow ships from the West Coast. They were relatively expensive. So mainland fruits were a special treat for many of our youngsters in the islands.
I recall my uncle, my mother's younger brother, growing up on the plantation in Papaikou on the Big Island. As a young boy in the 1920's , he seldom had a chance to eat fruits from the mainland. They cost too much and their family was too big. But he had his fill of guavas, mangoes, papayas, bananas, oranges, tangerines, and other fruits that grew abundantly in our tropical climate. He wondered why those bright red apples that tasted so good, did not grow in Hawaii.
In those days, a Red Delicious Apple was a very special, once-a-year treat for kids growing up on the Plantation. On the day before Christmas, all of the children of the workers at the Sugar Plantation went up to the Plantation Manager's House on the hill and lined up in front of the steps. There, the manager's wife, sitting on a chair on the porch, handed out a single red apple to each child who approached one by one. My Uncle, barefoot, but with his hair neatly combed, would climb the steps, give a short bow (girls would curtsy) and wish the Manager, who was standing behind the chair, and his wife, "Merry Christmas!" and would be handed a shiny red apple.
My Uncle would carefully take his apple home, and together with his mother and father, would slice the apple into wedges and savor the delicious red apple. It was on one of these occasions that my uncle, as a little boy, made it his life's goal to someday develop an apple that would grow and flourish in Hawaii, and bear fruit just as delicious as the ones given out by the Plantation Manager's Wife. He wondered, "Why can't we grow apples like that in Hawaii?" So many other fruits grow here; why not apples?
He was a bright young boy, so smart that he was promoted two grades from third grade to sixth grade. He took agriculture courses in intermediate and high school, and joined the Future Farmers of America. And when he applied to the University of Hawaii, he was accepted into the College of Tropical Agriculture at age 16.
But he was worried because he couldn't swim, and he had heard that swimming was a mandatory requirement for graduation at the University. Having skipped two grades, he was younger and smaller than other incoming university freshmen. So during the summer before entering college, he started practicing his swimming in the streams along the Hamakua Coast. There, in the stream water, he caught an ear infection which would not go away. But he went to college in Manoa, anyway, confident that he could "tough it out" as most folks did with illnesses and infections in those days.
With no antibiotics in the 1930's (Penicillin not yet available) and no medical plan, he did try to tough it out. But the infection got progressively worse. He was determined to finish up the semester, but the infection invaded the mastoid bone, and it became agonizingly painful. Then on December 21, his parents received a call that their son had died of an ear infection. It was just days before Christmas.
The family chartered a plane to bring him back to the Big Island. That was a very sad Christmas for the family. The boy with dreams of apple orchards in Hawaii was gone, and we would have to wait for another boy or girl with visions of apple blossoms in the fields of Hawaii. A dream which remains largely unfulfilled, even to this day.
And as I looked at all of the apples in the produce bins of the market, I wondered , like my long-gone uncle's unfulfilled quest, "Why can't someone develop an apple that will grow and bear delicious apples in Hawaii?" I have seen some folks grow apples in their yards in Hawaii at higher and cooler elevations, or with careful artificial actions like manually defoliating the trees. We even had small crab apples growing in our yard in Hilo.
But I'd like to see an apple tree (or even peaches, nectarines, plums and cherries) that will grow near sea level in the tropics, and bear large, delicious fruit naturally. With worldwide transport so easy these days, it may not even be worth the effort to try developing tropical strains of temperate cold climate fruits. Even considering the problems with fruit flies and bulbul birds, shouldn't we at least attempt it? Wouldn't agricultural self-sufficiency and reducing the energy consumed to bring those fruits to the isles, be a worthwhile goal? My uncle would be very pleased if we tried.
Just some thoughts for your consideration from the Corner Table.
Uncle Ken
