As a kid growing up in Hawaii, Springer Kaye remembers feeling a bit left out of one particular mainland holiday tradition.
“I always wanted to go get a Christmas tree and pick one out on a farm,” Kaye said on a recent Friday, as she knelt on a patch of crumbly dirt on a tucked-away hillside more than 11 miles off the Mauna Kea Access Road.
From a safe distance, brown-and-white cows watched Kaye and a group of other volunteers, foresters and horticulturists working on the 2-acre site. Fog rolled in, and an io came to rest on a dead tree.
Ohia and koa stands framed the hillside, but if all goes well, the next group of trees to thrive on Mauna Kea’s slopes also will be the start of a new agricultural crop: Christmas trees.
A 2012 survey funded by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife and U.S. Forest Service found that 96 percent of Christmas trees are imported from the mainland. Most are sold at chain stores. There are local pick-your-own farms on the Big Island (Kaye and her husband typically go to one in Mountain View), but not enough supply for the large holiday demand.
The Aina Mauna Christmas Tree Demonstration Project wants to change that.
Kaye patted down the soil around a Douglas fir seedling no more than 8 inches tall — far from the soaring heights Douglas firs are famous for, but even giants have to start somewhere. And the 450 seedlings being planted by the group weren’t intended to reach their full height; it would be hard to fit a 100-foot tall tree into a living room.
“We think we can grow mainland-quality trees here,” Mike Robinson, a forester with the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, explained to the volunteers. The trees, grown on DHHL trust land, would create an economy for homesteaders and allow residents to take part in the pick-your-own tree tradition.
“It’s a big market if you can get it going,” said Heather Simmons, executive director of the Hawaii Forest Industry Association.
The association is spearheading the project, which so far has received funding from the state and federal Departments of Agriculture as well as Hawaii County and DHHL. Anthony Davis, a University of Idaho professor, provided consultation for seedling propagation.
Trial plantings began in 2002, testing which trees would grow best and which could be readily germinated in a nursery. Douglas firs proved the most successful on both counts.
The conifers are ideal for the Hawaii market because of their rich green color, their relatively low purchase point and their Christmassy scent. Douglas firs also have a somewhat morbid Big Island connection: The tree is named for David Douglas, a Scottish botanist who died after falling into a cattle pit located off Mana Road, not far from the seedling planting site.
But the trees’ greatest asset might be the simple fact that they were grown here.
Importing trees brings the considerable risk of importing slugs and insects. In 2014, a shipment of 1,200 trees bound for KTA Super Stores had to be returned to the Pacific Northwest because they did not pass an invasive species screening in Honolulu.
“We want to avoid all that,” Robinson said.
Kaye, who is the manager of the Big Island Invasive Species Council, knows all too well the problem of importing firs and pines. Having a local crop of trees could also help manage invasive species that are already in Hawaii, she said.
“If Christmas trees could take off up here, it could offset gorse,” Kaye said.
Planting seedlings at the hillside site began almost two years ago under the supervision of Hawaii Agriculture Research Center horticulturalist Aileen Yeh, who also conducted the original demonstration trials in 2002.
“A lot of them didn’t make it,” Yeh said. The weeds moved in too quickly, smothering the trees. Some seedlings were pulled up by curious wild turkeys. In the Waimea nursery where Yeh propagates the seeds, field mice have been a considerable problem.
“We’re just kind of learning as we go along,” Simmons said.
“It takes time to get going,” Davis said, adding that once a tree farm does get off the ground, it can provide generations to come with a source of revenue.
The project also intends to create a standard for the Douglas firs that are grown here, since not just any tree is suitable for the Christmas market. Trees must be the proper shape, with full branches sturdy enough to hold ornaments and strands of lights.
“It’s a real art to growing a Christmas tree,” Robinson said.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
