{"id":133030,"date":"2020-12-22T13:38:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T23:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=133030"},"modified":"2020-12-22T13:38:03","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T23:38:03","slug":"uh-grown-taro-feeds-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/12\/22\/uh-grown-taro-feeds-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"UH<\/abbr>-grown taro feeds hungry communities"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Taro field in Pepeʻekeo<\/span> with workers from the Wai\u0101kea Research Station: Dayle Tsuha (farm forewoman), Layne Matsushita (retired agricultural technician IV) and Sasha Kovacs (student assistant)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What hasn\u2019t changed during the COVID-19 pandemic is the need for research trials, such as the statewide variety trials of conventionally bred taro on Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island and Oʻahu<\/span> by University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources<\/a> (CTAHR<\/abbr>) Extension agents and the Department of Tropical Plant and Soil Sciences<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"taro\"<\/p>\n

What has changed is the community\u2019s greater need for food donations. Because of this need, researchers donated the surplus of taro corms to non-profit organizations to help feed communities after they collected data on fresh weights of underground makua corms, percent dry matter, and percent rot; compared how well the varieties grow under different environmental conditions; grew plants outside the measured rows to ensure uniform growth of varieties; and harvested taro corms in border areas. <\/p>\n

On Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Island, about 175 pounds of taro corms were donated to the culinary arts program at Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Community College<\/a>; some were used in their cafeteria and the remainder went to feed those in the Puna district through collaboration with Vibrant Hawaii and Chef Hui programs. In addition, Nicholle Konanui<\/strong> (former CTAHR<\/abbr> plant research technician) organized a team of gleaners and harvested about 800 pounds for #FeedThePeopleHI-Puna project. Taro variety trials in Pepe\u02bbekeo were conducted with the assistance of Wai\u0101kea Research Station Farm Manager Angel Magno<\/strong> and his crew of agricultural technicians.<\/p>\n

On Oʻahu<\/span>, more than 1,500 pounds of surplus taro corms were donated to a community food drive. The amazing yield and vigorous growth of taro hybrid #1005-84 at Waim\u0101nalo Research Station is attributed to their care by Farm Manager Roger Corrales<\/strong> and his crew of agricultural technicians. <\/p>\n

“Research is often thought to have benefits over the long-term. In these cases, research resulted in immediate benefits to communities,” said Susan Miyasaka<\/strong>, Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> County administrator. “Our faculty and staff are proud to help feed the community during these tough, pandemic times. Mahalo to Jari Sugano<\/strong> and Amjad Ahmad<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Oʻahu<\/span>, more than 1,500 pounds of surplus taro corms were donated to a community food drive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[212,265,1416,377,61,432],"class_list":["post-133030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-cooperative-extension-service","tag-covid-19-uh-helps","tag-culinary-arts-program","tag-hawaii-community-college","tag-tropical-plant-and-soil-sciences","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133030"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133066,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133030\/revisions\/133066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}