October 28, 2024 • 33 mins
Ever wondered how integrating trees into pasture systems could revolutionize sustainable agriculture? Join us as we discuss this innovative practice with Travis Idol from the University of Hawaii. Discover how the Lucena tree, a nitrogen-fixing powerhouse with high protein content, is transforming silvopasture systems across tropical and subtropical regions. Our conversation highlights successful implementations in Queensland, Australia, and South America, and explores the potential of this remarkable tree to enhance livestock nutrition and pasture productivity.
Travis Idol shares insights into the practicalities and challenges of silvopasture, focusing on manual harvesting techniques from Southeast Asia and the impact of mechanical mastication on Lucena's nutritional value. Get a glimpse into the promising results from a pilot project at Waimanalo, where Lucena trees have shown impressive growth, facilitating intensive grazing cycles. We also address the unique opportunities and obstacles presented by topography and soil conditions in adapting silvopasture practices.
The potential of drought-tolerant trees to sustain pasture systems during dry spells is another compelling aspect of our discussion. We explore propagation methods, collaborations with commercial nurseries, and carbon sequestration efforts that align with NRCS conservation programs. Hear about exciting updates on a project in Hawaii, involving seedless Lucena hybrids for pasture-finished beef cattle, as we share plans for disseminating findings and presenting at the Hawaii Agriculture Conference. Uncover the strategies behind balancing tree and grass growth for optimal agricultural output, while reducing costs and enhancing sustainability.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Aloha.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe Livestock Extension Group
out of the University of HawaiiManoa College of Tropical
Agriculture and Human Resources,the Center for Ag Profitability
out of the University ofNebraska-Lincoln and the Western
Sustainable AgricultureResearch and Education Program.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Aloha and welcome to the Livestock Balao, a podcast
aimed to provide educationalsupport, information, guidance
and outreach to our livestockstakeholders in Hawaii and the
rest of the US.
We are your hosts, Belio Shiroand Shannon Sand, and today
we're going to talk with TravisIdol from the University of
Hawaii and we're going to shareand talk a little bit about some
(00:59):
projects that he's working on,that we all are working on.
So thanks, Travis, for joiningus today.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Oh, thanks for inviting me.
Glad to be back.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, you're coming to be a regular, I think, on the
podcast.
Now.
This is what show number three,four maybe.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh yeah, I appreciate it.
So it's a neat project, happyto share, kind of where we are
right now with it, and great tohave you two helping out with
some of the extension educationparts of this project.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, maybe you want to just quickly introduce
yourself again to those that arelistening.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Sure.
So I'm Travis Idle, a professorof tropical forestry and
agroforestry here at theUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa on
Oahu and in the Department ofNatural Resources and
Environmental Management.
So I've been working with kindof this amazing agroforestry
tree called it's, in the genuscalled Lucena.
(01:53):
It's a nitrogen fixing tree.
It's been used for a lot ofdifferent things in the tropics
by small farmers, but one of thethings I want to talk about
today is how it has been usedand how we're planning to use it
and are beginning to use it forsilvopasture, meaning that it's
actually serving as a tree inpasture systems and, in this
case, actually as a forage cropfor the animals to eat.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
That's cool because I feel like silvopasture is not
really talked about a whole lot.
Can you kind of explain that,because I think you're the only
one we've had on that has talkedabout it in the past?
Just for the folks that haven'theard it before.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Sure.
So silvopasture in a realsimple sense is incorporating
trees into pastures and grazingsystems.
This can be done a lot ofdifferent ways and normally
people think of it as trees, asoverstory plants, of course,
things that can provide shadefor the animals.
So especially in the tropics,here you know, giving them a
place to get out of the sun inthe middle of the day to relax
(02:49):
and for cows, obviously, to chewtheir cud.
In Hawaii in particular,because we've got pretty windy
conditions throughout the year,they're often used as a
windbreak, so kind of providingthat sort of protection and
shelter for the animals as well.
But in our case and we're not,certainly not the first place to
try this the trees themselvesare actually a food source for
(03:09):
the animals.
So this has been done in smallfarms where the trees, maybe as
a windbreak, can be pruned backroutinely and then that green
material, the leaves and smallbranches, can be fed to the
animals.
But actually for our project,what we're doing is planting
trees in rows within the pastureand then the animals actually
browse that down regularly as ahigh protein food source,
(03:34):
because Lucena, much likealfalfa and clover, are in the
legume family, so they arenitrogen fixers, meaning they
tend to have a high proteincontent in that leafy material.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Excellent, excellent little overview of what that is
and I think, important tounderstand.
I think it's becoming moreregular common right to see
these types of systems beingincorporated into grazing
management.
So that's.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, it's.
You know this is again.
The tropics are places wherethese are a little bit more
common.
The subtropics as well are apossibility for these sort of
infield trees for forage and forbrowsing.
This is done, has been pickedup and used extensively in a few
places elsewhere, so inparticular Queensland, australia
(04:17):
.
They've developed a system thatworks pretty well for them and
then this has spread to otherplaces where grazing is
important, such as Argentina,colombia, even Cuba, and there's
a lot of small kind of smallanimal livestock systems where
maybe more what we call cut andcarry, where again you sort of
prune the trees back and thenbring that to the animals, so
like sheep, goats, that kind ofthing.
(04:39):
But again, because it's a highprotein food source and because
it's a perennial, it's a treetends to grow back well.
Because it's a high proteinfood source and because it's a
perennial, it's a tree tends togrow back well.
That's a fairly sustainablesystem and tends to be pretty
productive, not only from theplant production standpoint but
from the animal productionstandpoint as well.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So it can be used for small remnants as well as like
cattle, horses, all of thelivestock that are on land, at
least kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, it's been tried for a lot of different things.
It's obviously things likegrazing mammals sheep, goats,
cows.
It's been tried with pelletizedfish food, poultry food.
People have tried it in lots ofdifferent combinations and
situations, but typically cattle, sheep, goats are the primary
ones where this has been asuccessful system.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Oh, very good.
So I think that's a great wayto lead us into sort of the
project that you're currentlyworking on right now, right, and
you maybe want to share alittle bit about that and sort
of take us to where you areright now.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, so on our first podcast we had.
So I want to encourage folks togo back and see that one
episode we talked about kind ofthis project as its beginning.
So the Western Sustainable AgResearch and Education Program
through US Department of Ag, isfunding a project for us to look
not just at Lucena silvopasturehere in Hawaii but the use of
(05:58):
seedless or sterile varieties ofthis tree for that purpose.
So anyone who knows Lucena asits more common name in Hawaii,
koa Haole, knows that it can bea pretty nasty weed.
Once it gets established in apasture, an ag field or even in
your backyard, it is really hardto get rid of.
The seeds can last a long timein the soil.
So you know it's just tough toreally get rid of it and so it's
(06:21):
kind of gotten a bad reputationin here.
But really around the world.
I mean it is considered anoxious weed in many, many
places of the world, includingin parts of Australia.
But through a lot of treebreeding work done here at the
University of Hawaii over theyears by other colleagues of
mine, before even I got here,they developed some hybrids.
So there are about 20 speciesin this genus of tree and so
(06:45):
crossing some of those speciesresults in sterile or
non-seeding hybrids, and sothose are the varieties that we
are working with specificallybecause we'd like to use this
tree and take advantage of thebenefits it can provide, but we
don't want it spreading outsideof the areas where we're
planting.
And so this is it kind ofchanges the way the system is
(07:08):
established, the way we thinkabout it, including things like
the propagation of the plant,because now we're not starting
from seed, but we think there'sa lot of potential for it and to
again, you know, take advantageof the benefits of a high
protein feed for animals that isfairly hardy and rugged, and so
the fact that you can't get ridof it also means that it should
be able to persist in pasturesand other kinds of systems Once
(07:32):
you get it established.
We just don't want it spreadingfrom where we would plant it in
the fields.
So where we are now is we have aresearch station here on Oahu
in our Waimanalo area, where wehave established several
varieties, so different hybrids,about four or five different
seedless hybrids, so that we cancompare how they grow, how they
(07:53):
do.
We're propagating them,planting them and then, as they
grow up, we're pruning them backto kind of simulate livestock
grazing or browsing and seeinghow the trees respond to that,
how much production we get, howwell they re-sprout.
We're even looking at theforage quality.
So in other words, what's thenutritional value of this plant
(08:14):
material for livestock animals?
So that's been going on forabout a year and we've got some
good results.
We can talk about that in alittle bit.
The other projects orinstallations we're close to
getting ready to establish arein actual cooperating ranchers
pastures on Hawaii Island.
So we have a couple oflocations currently in South
(08:35):
Kona region, the big island,where it's existing pasture, and
we're planning to put in one ofour more promising seedless
varieties to grow that up forabout a year let it get
established and then we'll letthe cows back in to begin eating
that down and then we'll seehow the plants themselves
(08:56):
respond to this actual browsing.
These are small plots so wedon't think we'll be able to get
much data from the animalsdirectly.
Think we'll be able to get muchdata from the animals directly,
but we'll certainly be able toget some good observations of
how you know how enthusiasticthey are about this as a food
source and then kind of reallytry to get a sense of the
grazing cycle that's necessaryto keep this tree under control,
(09:17):
while also providing enoughmaterial for the animals on a
regular basis.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, I think for me that's interesting is to see
kind of how the animals aregoing to see how palatable it is
to them.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So it's like, is it more appealing to like goats or
sheep or cattle, or I will beinterested in that.
But it is really exciting tohear that you've got taken what
four or five varieties and havebeen trying to do I'd been doing
kind of I don't want to saymock trials, but trials
basically to see how they growback and forage quality.
Have you noticed a lot and Idon't know if you can get into
(09:50):
this or not, but have younoticed a lot of differences
between the varieties or theredefinitely are some differences.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
So in some cases two different varieties share one of
the parent lines is the samespecies, lucena leucencephala.
It's a subspecies, it's a gianttype subspecies of that
leucencephala, and that onetends to be the one that over
time has proven to be fairlypalatable, grows pretty well,
(10:17):
and so that's one of the parents.
But then we'll bring in anotherspecies to cross with that, and
then those are the ones thatend up being sterile.
But we've got some varietieswhere it's two totally different
species, and so the way theplant looks, the way it grows,
even its tolerances to thingslike cold or acidic soil
conditions may vary quite a bit.
(10:38):
So we're really just gettinginto the beginning stages of
evaluating these.
So, for example, we have onesite, one location, one soil
type, one climate, where four orfive of these are being
compared next to each other.
But you go to, obviously Hawaiihas lots of different growing
environments.
So you take those four or fivevarieties, put them somewhere
(10:59):
else and the comparativeperformance may vary.
So there's a lot we could do,you know, in the future, but at
least we're getting that firstcrack at it.
So the one variety that seemsto be performing the best and we
kind of had a hunch this mightbe the case is what we call
variety KX4.
So that one is a cross betweentwo particular species.
(11:22):
I can give you the details ofthat in writing later, but it's
Leucocephala is one of theparent lines, the other one is
Lucena esculenta.
So those two crosses provide apretty vigorous kind of progeny.
It's seedless, does produceflowers, but almost never see a
seed pod on it.
It grows pretty fast, respondswell to pruning or simulated
grazing, responds well topruning or simulated grazing and
(11:44):
it's relatively easy topropagate.
So again, if you recall, theseare not from seed, so we have to
vegetatively propagate them,and so we've tried different
ways of doing that and we have asystem of taking kind of young
green shoots or cuttings andthen bringing those into the
greenhouse, putting a little bitof a rooting hormone, misting
(12:04):
them for a few weeks until theroots start to develop, and then
we can treat them like aseedling and grow them up until
they're ready to go in the field, so that one just has a nice
combination of properties interms of propagation and
performance in the field that welike.
We don't have a whole lot offorage quality data yet.
We've got some initial data butwe need to compare that with
some of the other varieties wehave which don't have quite the
(12:28):
same level of performance interms of growth.
But if they have better foragequality then that nutritional
value can balance out adifference in actual just
quantity or biomass ofproduction.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Oh yeah, I mean, if it's really high nutrition
content, similar to like, Ithink like alfalfa year, right,
I mean that's a high dollarforage product period and I
don't know.
I'm going to ask a really dumbquestion, travis probably, but
like it sounds like you canprune the tree and take it down
to the end, so is it liketransportable?
(13:02):
So in my head I'm like boy.
If this works out, I was like,could you figure out how to like
, not bail it, but some way tomake it into a feedstuff?
It sounds like potentially,since it's been used for
aquaculture feed.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So yeah, yeah, definitely get a good ag
engineer in there to think abouthow to work with that you know,
maybe later down the line.
Yeah, no.
In this case a couple of things.
One is that, yeah, we'relooking at the very young, the
leaves and the young branches,so those are fairly easy to
harvest, to bale, I mean, like Isaid, cut and carry systems.
(13:40):
In places like Southeast Asia.
These are all done by hand,like machete essentially.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And guys, with a horse drawn With a bag.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, yeah, so they carry that into town and then
they can either sell that orfeed it to their own animals or
sell it to other folks withanimals.
So that's the case.
But we even had a study donehere at UH where they actually
kind of what they callmassacrated or mechanically sort
of pulverized that freshmaterial just a little bit and
that actually helped improve thenutritional value by breaking
(14:05):
down some of the one main toxic,mildly toxic chemical in
leucina, which is calledmimocine.
It's an amino acid but it's notsomething that animals are used
to, so they can't break it downvery well.
So we're looking for varietiesthat have low levels of mimocine
.
But in this case thismastication process, just kind
of grinding it up a little bit,reduced that mimocine
(14:27):
concentration just by releasingsome enzymes and that made it
more palatable, more nutritiousfor the animals.
So definitely there's somethings that can be done if you
want to do this for more of acut and carry system.
So we're open to folks whomight be interested in trying
this out outside of a typicalcattle pasture, which is the
focus of this project right now.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Okay, yeah, I believe in some areas some of that
cotton carry makes sense, right,because you may not be able to
access, or the trees are tootall.
Animals are not going to get itat that point.
So a good way to say it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, one of our locations where we're planning
to put it in the field, it's gota slope.
It's fairly rocky soils, whichis one of the reasons it's a
pasture right, not used forcoffee or something else, so
getting trees in that field isgoing to be a little more
challenging, so the cost ofinstallation is going to be
higher.
So in that kind of a situationit might make sense to find
(15:19):
areas that are easy to plant,put lots of trees in there, and
then I mean, if it's in a hugecluster, you can just turn the
animals in every once in a while, or you can cut and bring that
material to the animals as theywould.
If they're already importinghigh protein feeds already and
feeding it to the animals, thenthis is something where you can
produce it.
You can grow it yourself.
(15:40):
So there are definitelysituations where that might make
more sense, and so that's whywe want to work with actual
ranchers, grazers, becausethey're going to know this
better than we are.
We think in terms of nice, neatexperiments.
They think in terms of what.
This is the reality I have inthe field.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So I'm giving a little update on the Waimanalo
kind of where we are.
So this is a fairly lowelevation site, soils are pretty
good and we were able to getsome irrigation water to the
plants the first year just toget them established.
So, you know, kind of reallynice ideal conditions for the
most part.
But our KX4, we have the mostdata.
So this is our kind of posterchild for silvopasture right now
(16:22):
.
That one we put it in theground for about, really about
10 months and by then we had,you know, the trees themselves
had grown probably 15 feet tall.
They had.
The main stem that we planted inthe ground was maybe, you know,
three inches in diameter.
I mean, just really took off.
And so then what we did afterabout 10 months is we cut them
(16:44):
back, we pruned them back,stumped them to about 18 inches
off the ground.
Cut them back, we pruned themback, stumped them to about 18
inches off the ground.
So we wanted to let the shootscome up to the grazing height or
browsing height of the animal,the cattle.
And so, based on some earlierwork, we figured, you know when
that biomass kind of got to thepoint where we would want to let
the animals in to browse it.
(17:04):
We had about three feet of newshoot growth from the trees and
so they were kind of bushy atthat point, right Shoots coming
out everywhere on that stem thatwe had pruned, and so the
height and diameter of thatshrub, if you want to call it
that, at that point was aboutthree feet or so in height and
diameter.
So the whole thing was maybefour feet, four and a half feet,
(17:26):
five feet in height, which isfairly easily reachable by the
animals, especially with youngbranches.
They can pull it over and eatit down.
So we planted rows of this tree.
Each of the tree treesthemselves, planted in a row,
was about three feet apart.
So as they grew back togetherthey kind of created this sort
(17:46):
of fully filled in hedgerow ofLucena in the field.
And so then we startedharvesting it back, just
basically kind of simulatingbrowsing by cutting it back to
the main stem and then weighingall of that material and taking
some samples to do foragequality analysis.
So grew back pretty well.
(18:07):
Obviously we've been doing thatsince the spring.
We've been, we've done severalrounds of that here over the
summer.
We're going to give it a quickrest for a few months as we work
on some of the other varietiesand to start their grazing cycle
.
And then we're going to go backin the winter time, when it's a
little bit cooler, a little bitwetter, to see how that changes
in a different season of theyear.
(18:28):
But for this summer period theprimary thing that we've noticed
is, about every four to fiveweeks the trees are ready to
harvest or they're ready to goback in.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Oh that's good.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, so if you think about kind of an intensive
grazing sort of cycle where yousend the animals in for a day or
two just to graze everythingdown and then let the pasture
rest, that would be the idealsituation for working with
Lucina, because it just needs afew weeks to get back up large
enough to really, you know,withstand.
Well, I mean to give it enoughtime to re-sprout and recover
(19:02):
material, yeah, for the animalsto have something meaningful to
eat.
So we just left a couple ofanimals in there to slowly eat
it down over time.
What's going to end uphappening is some of the
branches are going to be way toobig by the time they get to
them, and the other plants youknow where they can reach them
they're going to be nibblingthem down every week to the
point where you know there'svery little coming off.
So this really is made for anintensive grazing cycle where
(19:25):
the animals go in, they come out, they come back in when the
trees and the grass, hopefully,are about both right, and so
that balance is something elsewe need to look at under a lot
of different situations is, whatis that balance between the
growth of the grass and thegrowth of the lucena trees,
Because we want them, you know,kind of at about the same stage
(19:47):
when the animals go in.
So you know, so for thesummertime, one month cycle is
about right for KX4.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
And I think that for most folks that's probably the
typical cycle that they're using.
Is that four to five weeks ofbreast?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, and so we have a site on the Big Island where
we're planning to plant thislittle bit lower elevation.
I think guinea grass is theprimary grass species that
animals will be eating, andthere the rancher has them
browse or graze the grass backto about knee high, so about 18
inches or so off the ground.
(20:23):
So that would be just aboutperfect for our trees, because
the animals will be both kind ofabout the same height of the
trees and the grass as they takeit down every month or so, and
I think our Lucina can keep upwith the Guinea grass.
The other site we have is alittle bit higher elevation and
they're using kind of aBrachiaria grass hybrid which
can grow pretty fast.
But there it's a cooler siteand we've noticed the grass
(20:46):
grows slower.
So we're kind of hoping once weget the Lucina in there it will
also slow down a little bit sothat it doesn't get too far
ahead of the grass for theanimals.
So we got a couple of siteswhere we can be testing this.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
There's lots of different combinations we could
think about in the future other,what forage types do the best?
Kind of with that lucina inthere and kind of you know, sort
of symbiotic relationship toeach other to be more productive
on one or the other right andthinking about drought and stuff
like that just to have analternative forage in there is
kind of yeah, that's a real bigadvantage.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
We think not just besides the production and the
forage quality is you'll have.
These trees, once they getestablished, should be able to
stay green longer than the grassand dry.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Are they pretty drought tolerant?
For the most part, then, yes.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I say yes, a little bit qualified, because that's
fine If you don't call howly atall.
Do you ever try to dig it uprather than just cut it back?
You know it's got a prettydecent taproot on it, but
taproots just a little plantbiology here.
Tap roots form from the seed.
It's that first little radicalthat comes out of the seed, the
(21:53):
first root.
That's what forms a tap root.
If you are taking plant cuttingsand little adventitious or side
roots form from the stem, youdon't get a tap root formally
but we plant them in sort ofconical shaped tubes.
So the roots were growing downin the nursery.
So we have a decent root depth,rooting depth when we put it in
(22:15):
the ground with the hope thatthose kind of new roots will
also kind of form, get down intothe ground and be able to take
up water much like a taprootdoes.
So we think they'll be fairlydrought tolerant.
We've seen that with othertrees we've just planted for
windbreaks and other purposes.
But that's another thing we'llbe testing is how well they can
do under dry periods when thegrass pretty much has stopped
(22:37):
growing.
You know, the hope is thatyou'll still have some kind of
forage for the animals duringthat time.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of things and exciting things.
So I think look forward to andsee what comes out of this
project to be able to get moreresources and things you know,
options for our producers.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
So yeah, yeah, and we certainly have.
One of the things we talkedabout was the propagation end
and that's something where we'vefigured out what we think works
best.
But you know, we're not.
Again, we're not we're.
You know we're.
We're university kind ofresearchers with our own little
greenhouse growing up plants foran experiment.
(23:18):
We're not a commercial nurserydoing this by the thousands,
which would have to be done toplant out in a pasture, because
we're probably looking atseveral thousand plants or trees
per well.
Maybe a thousand or two treesper acre would be necessary,
based on the spacing.
Well, maybe a thousand or twotrees per acre would be
necessary, based on the spacing.
So the within row spacing wouldbe about three feet.
The between row spacing kind ofdepends upon the balance of
grass versus lucena that youwant the animals to eat.
(23:39):
That's a nutritional but it'salso a production issue, right?
How fast are those two plantsgrow relative to each other?
But right now we're looking atabout a 15 foot spacing between
the rows.
So you kind of do that math inyour head and you end up with
about a thousand or 2000 treesper acre.
So we're talking about, youknow, tens of thousands of trees
would be needed just to put ina, you know, decent size pasture
(24:01):
somewhere.
So we're working with thecommercial nursery to have them
try out some of the propagationmethods that we've developed and
obviously, you know, adapt andinnovate based on what works for
them, with the hope that it'snot a chicken or egg thing where
there's, you know people whowant to plant it but not enough
plants.
Or you know a nursery that'sready but they don't have
(24:21):
anybody, you know, ordering thenumber they need to keep it
going.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, I was thinking when this gets to a stage where
it's commercially viable, Iwonder if it's something because
I've been doing a lot of workin like carbon credits and
carbon sequestration lately incarbon markets and I'm like to
me this is like a potentialthing that could be used for
that and so you could do someoffsets and credits potentially
to help offset the cost of thatif a producer decides to go that
(24:48):
route later on.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Sure, I had a former student of mine was from New
Zealand and so he went back towork there and their forestry
research agency.
And yet he was looking at thatas well, just planting trees in
pasture, just for the carbonitself.
Yeah, because they were goingto come under some cap and trade
type system there, sort ofsimilar to what California had,
and they were going to includethe ag industry.
(25:12):
So they're like where are areasthat are poor for grazing
purposes?
Plant the trees there and takethe carbon, but here there would
be a working part of thepasture, but yeah, and then you
could look at that.
Of course we have the soilhealth project and the Climate
Smart Commodities Grant that ourUniversity, of folks in our
department and our college gotrecently.
So these are the kinds ofthings they're looking at as
(25:34):
well from soil carbon, not justfrom the plant carbon
perspective, but the other way Ithink that this can really help
from the cost perspective isNRCS.
So if we can develop or adaptconservation practices that are
accepted by NRCS, then that canhelp with the cost share upfront
(25:56):
which is yeah that EQIP programis great.
Yeah, so these are contourplantings or there's several
kinds, I think, of practices wecould adapt.
And so, again, once we kind ofget this established in some of
these private ranches, that'sthe time to go to NRCS and say,
okay, let's look at this and seehow we can go forward.
(26:17):
And they even have their ownconservation innovation grant
program to help support thesekinds of projects, which this is
something we'll definitely belooking at for the future.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Oh, and I know you've mentioned you have a few
ranches you're cooperating withon Big Island.
Are you looking for anyadditional cooperators right now
, or are you kind of like you'redone at this moment in time,
but maybe in the future?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Always willing to talk to folks about it.
There definitely is anotherrancher who's interested.
I need to get these first twoin the ground and kind of say,
okay, I got these done, nowlet's talk to you.
The grant itself we have canprobably accommodate one more
the ground.
And then kind of say, okay, Igot these done, now let's talk
to you.
You know, the grant itself wehave can probably accommodate
one more.
Okay, so you're almost full.
(27:00):
Basically, okay, we're almostfull, but anybody who's
interested you know we can talkabout.
You know how else we couldaccommodate those folks.
Because, again, we do have ayou know small ability to
propagate you know plants on thehundreds basis and then, like I
said, we do have a nurseryworking with us.
So, you know, if we needed acouple thousand more, you know
that wouldn't be too much of anexpense for us just to provide
the plants if they can say, yeah, I've got a place to plant them
(27:21):
, nice, yep.
So we're making some progress.
The other thing we're working onis getting this information out
there in more than just podcastform.
So we've got a website that isunder development and about
ready to release.
So that'll provide kind of thebackground, some of the things
we've talked about.
We'll definitely provide sortof general updates and progress
(27:42):
on the project, pictures, videos.
I think we'll also have a kindof an interest survey.
So if there are folks who areinterested, there'll be a way
for them to let us know and giveus some information, and we're
also planning to present some ofthis early work at the Hawaii
Agriculture Conference which iscoming up in November.
When is that again?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I forget November 7th and 8th, I believe.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Yeah, so November 7th and 8th we're hoping to have
either a talk or poster.
We'll try to have a displaytable set up so folks can stop
by and chat and see a little bitmore about the project.
So happy to be able to share itthat way as well.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yes, yes.
So be there.
Yeah, and Hawaii Eye Conferenceis a good one.
Talks a lot about alleverything else that's going on
too.
Yeah, and I think for me, I'mexcited to see this Lucina
project.
I mean, we've seen itestablished in some of the other
areas and how much it improvesdaily gain in the beef cattle
production.
So for me, with our grassfinish folks here, I think
(28:41):
that's going to be an excitingpoint if they can.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yeah, that's been the folks with the most interest.
Are those doing I say pasturefinished?
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Doing I'd say pasture finished.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Not to introduce a new, the change in terminology,
but, yeah, pasture finished beeffor sure, I think this is a
good one.
Yeah, and so those have been thefolks who've been most
interested, but definitelythere's lots of different, you
know, kind of situations inwhich this might be useful from
a silvopasture perspective.
So happy to chat with anybodywho you know and think about
creativity and innovation.
You know that's what this isreally meant to stimulate and
(29:15):
also get some folks who canpropagate it so that we can do
this at a larger scale.
You see, our next phase reallyis to try to get this at a
grazing scale.
We want to see how the animalsrespond.
As Melee said, there has been alittle bit of work, but that
was with the kind of seededvariety that they have in
Australia, and so you know, Ithink that's that insulation is
still going, which is great, andthey have some really good
(29:36):
results, and so we're hoping tojust be able to see how that
works with these seedlesshybrids as well yeah, yeah,
great, great good to hear allthe updates yeah, yeah, and
obviously the other one that theproducer might be interested in
.
Well, you, what's it costing youto get this in the ground?
And certainly because we'redoing this at small scale, you
know, with a lot of control, youknow it's not, you know it's
(29:57):
not cheap, right to get this in,but there are definitely some
things that can help reduce thatcost.
The first one is the fencingissue.
So if you've got paddocksalready kind of fenced off where
you can move animals in and out, and so fencing is not
something you have to put inspecifically for this project,
then that can save a lot ofupfront cost.
In that case, the main thingwould be, you know, the the
(30:18):
planting of the trees themselves.
You got to get that in theground, so some site prep work
would be needed.
The planting itself is done,although that can usually be
done in about a day, dependingupon the size of the crew and
the pasture, and then a littlebit of a follow-up.
Probably weeding will need tobe done, because once you
disturb that soil, it's not justthe grass coming back off and
you can get weeds and thingsmoving in there, but then you
(30:39):
just have to keep the animalsout of there for about a year,
so that you know that's anopportunity cost to the producer
because they can't use thatpasture for well, eight, 10, 10
months, 12 months, until thetrees are large enough that you
can cut them back one time andlet the animals start going in
there and grazing them back down.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, I think fencing and exclosures are an important
part, especially when you startto have to keep the animals out
of it and once they get a tasteof it.
Because from what?
I understand, they like it so.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Yeah, the producer's most interested, like I already
have koha haole in my pastureand I know the animals like it.
Yeah, they keep them browseddown pretty well, they know they
like it.
And that was actually one ofthe reasons koha haole was a
widespread in Hawaii wasactually it was in C-TAR way
back when actually did promotethis a little bit as a potential
(31:28):
supplement for grazing in areasthat had, you know, not the
best forage grasses.
So, you know, put this in there.
We know the animals will likeit.
Problem was it was a seededvariety and so it just kind of
spread around.
But definitely, you know, theranchers themselves know, you
know they're experiencinganimals as they know they like
it.
So we're hoping we can do it ina manner that's controlled and
productive, yeah, To help themto make it worth the cost of
(31:51):
putting it in there on purpose.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, great, anything else.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
That's most of the things we have right now.
Okay, the main thing is get thisinto our once we get these in
the ground at some of ourcooperating producers we're
hoping next summer that they'llbe at a stage where we can then
have a field day, invite folksout to see it rather than just
sort of talking about it, andthen, you know, we can kind of
get really out and kind of starttalking about the questions of
how we got it in, how it's beendoing, what their concerns are.
(32:17):
You know different ways theycould see that it could be
utilized.
And that's really where youknow getting the juices flowing
and the conversations going isreally going to help us think
about how to work with this inthe future.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Well, good, good.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us today, travis.
We hope our listeners foundthis informative and that it
will be useful to them.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah make sure to follow us on our social media
pages the Livestock PalauLivestock Extension Group, if
you haven't already, and be sureto visit the UH CTAHR Extension
website and the YouTube channellisted in the show notes, and
we'll also list the website forthe Lucina project.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yes, yes, and, as Mele said, for additional
information about this topic,see those show notes of the
podcast below.
Thanks for listening to thelivestock of all out before we
go show some love for yourfavorite podcast.
Thank you for making us numberthree educational podcast in
Hawaii, by the way, and thenstay tuned for next month's
episode.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, thanks again to our sponsors the Livestock
Extension Group of theUniversity of Kaua'i, manoa
College of Tropical Agricultureand Human Resources, the Center
for Ag Profibility of theUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
and the Western SustainableAgriculture Research and
Education Program.
Mahalo for listening.
A hui hou, a hui hou.
Mahalo for listening.
(33:38):
Ahoi ho, ahoi ho.
Aloha.
Today's episode is sponsored bythe Livestock Extension Group
out of the University of HawaiiManoa College of Tropical
Agriculture and Human Resources,the Center for Ag Profitability
out of the University ofNebraska-Lincoln and the Western
Sustainable AgricultureResearch and Education Program.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Aloha and welcome to the Livestock Balao, a podcast
aimed to provide educationalsupport, information, guidance
and outreach to our livestockstakeholders in Hawaii and the
rest of the US.
We are your hosts, Belio Shiroand Shannon Sand, and today
we're going to talk with TravisIdol from the University of
Hawaii and we're going to shareand talk a little bit about some
(00:59):
projects that he's working on,that we all are working on.
So thanks, Travis, for joiningus today.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Oh, thanks for inviting me.
Glad to be back.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, you're coming to be a regular, I think, on the
podcast.
Now.
This is what show number three,four maybe.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh yeah, I appreciate it.
So it's a neat project, happyto share, kind of where we are
right now with it, and great tohave you two helping out with
some of the extension educationparts of this project.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Yeah, maybe you want to just quickly introduce
yourself again to those that arelistening.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Sure.
So I'm Travis Idle, a professorof tropical forestry and
agroforestry here at theUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa on
Oahu and in the Department ofNatural Resources and
Environmental Management.
So I've been working with kindof this amazing agroforestry
tree called it's, in the genuscalled Lucena.
(01:53):
It's a nitrogen fixing tree.
It's been used for a lot ofdifferent things in the tropics
by small farmers, but one of thethings I want to talk about
today is how it has been usedand how we're planning to use it
and are beginning to use it forsilvopasture, meaning that it's
actually serving as a tree inpasture systems and, in this
case, actually as a forage cropfor the animals to eat.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
That's cool because I feel like silvopasture is not
really talked about a whole lot.
Can you kind of explain that,because I think you're the only
one we've had on that has talkedabout it in the past?
Just for the folks that haven'theard it before.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Sure.
So silvopasture in a realsimple sense is incorporating
trees into pastures and grazingsystems.
This can be done a lot ofdifferent ways and normally
people think of it as trees, asoverstory plants, of course,
things that can provide shadefor the animals.
So especially in the tropics,here you know, giving them a
place to get out of the sun inthe middle of the day to relax
(02:49):
and for cows, obviously, to chewtheir cud.
In Hawaii in particular,because we've got pretty windy
conditions throughout the year,they're often used as a
windbreak, so kind of providingthat sort of protection and
shelter for the animals as well.
But in our case and we're not,certainly not the first place to
try this the trees themselvesare actually a food source for
(03:09):
the animals.
So this has been done in smallfarms where the trees, maybe as
a windbreak, can be pruned backroutinely and then that green
material, the leaves and smallbranches, can be fed to the
animals.
But actually for our project,what we're doing is planting
trees in rows within the pastureand then the animals actually
browse that down regularly as ahigh protein food source,
(03:34):
because Lucena, much likealfalfa and clover, are in the
legume family, so they arenitrogen fixers, meaning they
tend to have a high proteincontent in that leafy material.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Excellent, excellent little overview of what that is
and I think, important tounderstand.
I think it's becoming moreregular common right to see
these types of systems beingincorporated into grazing
management.
So that's.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yeah, it's.
You know this is again.
The tropics are places wherethese are a little bit more
common.
The subtropics as well are apossibility for these sort of
infield trees for forage and forbrowsing.
This is done, has been pickedup and used extensively in a few
places elsewhere, so inparticular Queensland, australia
(04:17):
.
They've developed a system thatworks pretty well for them and
then this has spread to otherplaces where grazing is
important, such as Argentina,colombia, even Cuba, and there's
a lot of small kind of smallanimal livestock systems where
maybe more what we call cut andcarry, where again you sort of
prune the trees back and thenbring that to the animals, so
like sheep, goats, that kind ofthing.
(04:39):
But again, because it's a highprotein food source and because
it's a perennial, it's a treetends to grow back well.
Because it's a high proteinfood source and because it's a
perennial, it's a tree tends togrow back well.
That's a fairly sustainablesystem and tends to be pretty
productive, not only from theplant production standpoint but
from the animal productionstandpoint as well.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
So it can be used for small remnants as well as like
cattle, horses, all of thelivestock that are on land, at
least kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, it's been tried for a lot of different things.
It's obviously things likegrazing mammals sheep, goats,
cows.
It's been tried with pelletizedfish food, poultry food.
People have tried it in lots ofdifferent combinations and
situations, but typically cattle, sheep, goats are the primary
ones where this has been asuccessful system.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Oh, very good.
So I think that's a great wayto lead us into sort of the
project that you're currentlyworking on right now, right, and
you maybe want to share alittle bit about that and sort
of take us to where you areright now.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Yeah, so on our first podcast we had.
So I want to encourage folks togo back and see that one
episode we talked about kind ofthis project as its beginning.
So the Western Sustainable AgResearch and Education Program
through US Department of Ag, isfunding a project for us to look
not just at Lucena silvopasturehere in Hawaii but the use of
(05:58):
seedless or sterile varieties ofthis tree for that purpose.
So anyone who knows Lucena asits more common name in Hawaii,
koa Haole, knows that it can bea pretty nasty weed.
Once it gets established in apasture, an ag field or even in
your backyard, it is really hardto get rid of.
The seeds can last a long timein the soil.
So you know it's just tough toreally get rid of it and so it's
(06:21):
kind of gotten a bad reputationin here.
But really around the world.
I mean it is considered anoxious weed in many, many
places of the world, includingin parts of Australia.
But through a lot of treebreeding work done here at the
University of Hawaii over theyears by other colleagues of
mine, before even I got here,they developed some hybrids.
So there are about 20 speciesin this genus of tree and so
(06:45):
crossing some of those speciesresults in sterile or
non-seeding hybrids, and sothose are the varieties that we
are working with specificallybecause we'd like to use this
tree and take advantage of thebenefits it can provide, but we
don't want it spreading outsideof the areas where we're
planting.
And so this is it kind ofchanges the way the system is
(07:08):
established, the way we thinkabout it, including things like
the propagation of the plant,because now we're not starting
from seed, but we think there'sa lot of potential for it and to
again, you know, take advantageof the benefits of a high
protein feed for animals that isfairly hardy and rugged, and so
the fact that you can't get ridof it also means that it should
be able to persist in pasturesand other kinds of systems Once
(07:32):
you get it established.
We just don't want it spreadingfrom where we would plant it in
the fields.
So where we are now is we have aresearch station here on Oahu
in our Waimanalo area, where wehave established several
varieties, so different hybrids,about four or five different
seedless hybrids, so that we cancompare how they grow, how they
(07:53):
do.
We're propagating them,planting them and then, as they
grow up, we're pruning them backto kind of simulate livestock
grazing or browsing and seeinghow the trees respond to that,
how much production we get, howwell they re-sprout.
We're even looking at theforage quality.
So in other words, what's thenutritional value of this plant
(08:14):
material for livestock animals?
So that's been going on forabout a year and we've got some
good results.
We can talk about that in alittle bit.
The other projects orinstallations we're close to
getting ready to establish arein actual cooperating ranchers
pastures on Hawaii Island.
So we have a couple oflocations currently in South
(08:35):
Kona region, the big island,where it's existing pasture, and
we're planning to put in one ofour more promising seedless
varieties to grow that up forabout a year let it get
established and then we'll letthe cows back in to begin eating
that down and then we'll seehow the plants themselves
(08:56):
respond to this actual browsing.
These are small plots so wedon't think we'll be able to get
much data from the animalsdirectly.
Think we'll be able to get muchdata from the animals directly,
but we'll certainly be able toget some good observations of
how you know how enthusiasticthey are about this as a food
source and then kind of reallytry to get a sense of the
grazing cycle that's necessaryto keep this tree under control,
(09:17):
while also providing enoughmaterial for the animals on a
regular basis.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, I think for me that's interesting is to see
kind of how the animals aregoing to see how palatable it is
to them.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So it's like, is it more appealing to like goats or
sheep or cattle, or I will beinterested in that.
But it is really exciting tohear that you've got taken what
four or five varieties and havebeen trying to do I'd been doing
kind of I don't want to saymock trials, but trials
basically to see how they growback and forage quality.
Have you noticed a lot and Idon't know if you can get into
(09:50):
this or not, but have younoticed a lot of differences
between the varieties or theredefinitely are some differences.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
So in some cases two different varieties share one of
the parent lines is the samespecies, lucena leucencephala.
It's a subspecies, it's a gianttype subspecies of that
leucencephala, and that onetends to be the one that over
time has proven to be fairlypalatable, grows pretty well,
(10:17):
and so that's one of the parents.
But then we'll bring in anotherspecies to cross with that, and
then those are the ones thatend up being sterile.
But we've got some varietieswhere it's two totally different
species, and so the way theplant looks, the way it grows,
even its tolerances to thingslike cold or acidic soil
conditions may vary quite a bit.
(10:38):
So we're really just gettinginto the beginning stages of
evaluating these.
So, for example, we have onesite, one location, one soil
type, one climate, where four orfive of these are being
compared next to each other.
But you go to, obviously Hawaiihas lots of different growing
environments.
So you take those four or fivevarieties, put them somewhere
(10:59):
else and the comparativeperformance may vary.
So there's a lot we could do,you know, in the future, but at
least we're getting that firstcrack at it.
So the one variety that seemsto be performing the best and we
kind of had a hunch this mightbe the case is what we call
variety KX4.
So that one is a cross betweentwo particular species.
(11:22):
I can give you the details ofthat in writing later, but it's
Leucocephala is one of theparent lines, the other one is
Lucena esculenta.
So those two crosses provide apretty vigorous kind of progeny.
It's seedless, does produceflowers, but almost never see a
seed pod on it.
It grows pretty fast, respondswell to pruning or simulated
grazing, responds well topruning or simulated grazing and
(11:44):
it's relatively easy topropagate.
So again, if you recall, theseare not from seed, so we have to
vegetatively propagate them,and so we've tried different
ways of doing that and we have asystem of taking kind of young
green shoots or cuttings andthen bringing those into the
greenhouse, putting a little bitof a rooting hormone, misting
(12:04):
them for a few weeks until theroots start to develop, and then
we can treat them like aseedling and grow them up until
they're ready to go in the field, so that one just has a nice
combination of properties interms of propagation and
performance in the field that welike.
We don't have a whole lot offorage quality data yet.
We've got some initial data butwe need to compare that with
some of the other varieties wehave which don't have quite the
(12:28):
same level of performance interms of growth.
But if they have better foragequality then that nutritional
value can balance out adifference in actual just
quantity or biomass ofproduction.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Oh yeah, I mean, if it's really high nutrition
content, similar to like, Ithink like alfalfa year, right,
I mean that's a high dollarforage product period and I
don't know.
I'm going to ask a really dumbquestion, travis probably, but
like it sounds like you canprune the tree and take it down
to the end, so is it liketransportable?
(13:02):
So in my head I'm like boy.
If this works out, I was like,could you figure out how to like
, not bail it, but some way tomake it into a feedstuff?
It sounds like potentially,since it's been used for
aquaculture feed.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So yeah, yeah, definitely get a good ag
engineer in there to think abouthow to work with that you know,
maybe later down the line.
Yeah, no.
In this case a couple of things.
One is that, yeah, we'relooking at the very young, the
leaves and the young branches,so those are fairly easy to
harvest, to bale, I mean, like Isaid, cut and carry systems.
(13:40):
In places like Southeast Asia.
These are all done by hand,like machete essentially.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
And guys, with a horse drawn With a bag.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah, yeah, so they carry that into town and then
they can either sell that orfeed it to their own animals or
sell it to other folks withanimals.
So that's the case.
But we even had a study donehere at UH where they actually
kind of what they callmassacrated or mechanically sort
of pulverized that freshmaterial just a little bit and
that actually helped improve thenutritional value by breaking
(14:05):
down some of the one main toxic,mildly toxic chemical in
leucina, which is calledmimocine.
It's an amino acid but it's notsomething that animals are used
to, so they can't break it downvery well.
So we're looking for varietiesthat have low levels of mimocine
.
But in this case thismastication process, just kind
of grinding it up a little bit,reduced that mimocine
(14:27):
concentration just by releasingsome enzymes and that made it
more palatable, more nutritiousfor the animals.
So definitely there's somethings that can be done if you
want to do this for more of acut and carry system.
So we're open to folks whomight be interested in trying
this out outside of a typicalcattle pasture, which is the
focus of this project right now.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Okay, yeah, I believe in some areas some of that
cotton carry makes sense, right,because you may not be able to
access, or the trees are tootall.
Animals are not going to get itat that point.
So a good way to say it.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Yeah, one of our locations where we're planning
to put it in the field, it's gota slope.
It's fairly rocky soils, whichis one of the reasons it's a
pasture right, not used forcoffee or something else, so
getting trees in that field isgoing to be a little more
challenging, so the cost ofinstallation is going to be
higher.
So in that kind of a situationit might make sense to find
(15:19):
areas that are easy to plant,put lots of trees in there, and
then I mean, if it's in a hugecluster, you can just turn the
animals in every once in a while, or you can cut and bring that
material to the animals as theywould.
If they're already importinghigh protein feeds already and
feeding it to the animals, thenthis is something where you can
produce it.
You can grow it yourself.
(15:40):
So there are definitelysituations where that might make
more sense, and so that's whywe want to work with actual
ranchers, grazers, becausethey're going to know this
better than we are.
We think in terms of nice, neatexperiments.
They think in terms of what.
This is the reality I have inthe field.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So I'm giving a little update on the Waimanalo
kind of where we are.
So this is a fairly lowelevation site, soils are pretty
good and we were able to getsome irrigation water to the
plants the first year just toget them established.
So, you know, kind of reallynice ideal conditions for the
most part.
But our KX4, we have the mostdata.
So this is our kind of posterchild for silvopasture right now
(16:22):
.
That one we put it in theground for about, really about
10 months and by then we had,you know, the trees themselves
had grown probably 15 feet tall.
They had.
The main stem that we planted inthe ground was maybe, you know,
three inches in diameter.
I mean, just really took off.
And so then what we did afterabout 10 months is we cut them
(16:44):
back, we pruned them back,stumped them to about 18 inches
off the ground.
Cut them back, we pruned themback, stumped them to about 18
inches off the ground.
So we wanted to let the shootscome up to the grazing height or
browsing height of the animal,the cattle.
And so, based on some earlierwork, we figured, you know when
that biomass kind of got to thepoint where we would want to let
the animals in to browse it.
(17:04):
We had about three feet of newshoot growth from the trees and
so they were kind of bushy atthat point, right Shoots coming
out everywhere on that stem thatwe had pruned, and so the
height and diameter of thatshrub, if you want to call it
that, at that point was aboutthree feet or so in height and
diameter.
So the whole thing was maybefour feet, four and a half feet,
(17:26):
five feet in height, which isfairly easily reachable by the
animals, especially with youngbranches.
They can pull it over and eatit down.
So we planted rows of this tree.
Each of the tree treesthemselves, planted in a row,
was about three feet apart.
So as they grew back togetherthey kind of created this sort
(17:46):
of fully filled in hedgerow ofLucena in the field.
And so then we startedharvesting it back, just
basically kind of simulatingbrowsing by cutting it back to
the main stem and then weighingall of that material and taking
some samples to do foragequality analysis.
So grew back pretty well.
(18:07):
Obviously we've been doing thatsince the spring.
We've been, we've done severalrounds of that here over the
summer.
We're going to give it a quickrest for a few months as we work
on some of the other varietiesand to start their grazing cycle
.
And then we're going to go backin the winter time, when it's a
little bit cooler, a little bitwetter, to see how that changes
in a different season of theyear.
(18:28):
But for this summer period theprimary thing that we've noticed
is, about every four to fiveweeks the trees are ready to
harvest or they're ready to goback in.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Oh that's good.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, so if you think about kind of an intensive
grazing sort of cycle where yousend the animals in for a day or
two just to graze everythingdown and then let the pasture
rest, that would be the idealsituation for working with
Lucina, because it just needs afew weeks to get back up large
enough to really, you know,withstand.
Well, I mean to give it enoughtime to re-sprout and recover
(19:02):
material, yeah, for the animalsto have something meaningful to
eat.
So we just left a couple ofanimals in there to slowly eat
it down over time.
What's going to end uphappening is some of the
branches are going to be way toobig by the time they get to
them, and the other plants youknow where they can reach them
they're going to be nibblingthem down every week to the
point where you know there'svery little coming off.
So this really is made for anintensive grazing cycle where
(19:25):
the animals go in, they come out, they come back in when the
trees and the grass, hopefully,are about both right, and so
that balance is something elsewe need to look at under a lot
of different situations is, whatis that balance between the
growth of the grass and thegrowth of the lucena trees,
Because we want them, you know,kind of at about the same stage
(19:47):
when the animals go in.
So you know, so for thesummertime, one month cycle is
about right for KX4.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
And I think that for most folks that's probably the
typical cycle that they're using.
Is that four to five weeks ofbreast?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, and so we have a site on the Big Island where
we're planning to plant thislittle bit lower elevation.
I think guinea grass is theprimary grass species that
animals will be eating, andthere the rancher has them
browse or graze the grass backto about knee high, so about 18
inches or so off the ground.
(20:23):
So that would be just aboutperfect for our trees, because
the animals will be both kind ofabout the same height of the
trees and the grass as they takeit down every month or so, and
I think our Lucina can keep upwith the Guinea grass.
The other site we have is alittle bit higher elevation and
they're using kind of aBrachiaria grass hybrid which
can grow pretty fast.
But there it's a cooler siteand we've noticed the grass
(20:46):
grows slower.
So we're kind of hoping once weget the Lucina in there it will
also slow down a little bit sothat it doesn't get too far
ahead of the grass for theanimals.
So we got a couple of siteswhere we can be testing this.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
There's lots of different combinations we could
think about in the future other,what forage types do the best?
Kind of with that lucina inthere and kind of you know, sort
of symbiotic relationship toeach other to be more productive
on one or the other right andthinking about drought and stuff
like that just to have analternative forage in there is
kind of yeah, that's a real bigadvantage.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
We think not just besides the production and the
forage quality is you'll have.
These trees, once they getestablished, should be able to
stay green longer than the grassand dry.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Are they pretty drought tolerant?
For the most part, then, yes.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I say yes, a little bit qualified, because that's
fine If you don't call howly atall.
Do you ever try to dig it uprather than just cut it back?
You know it's got a prettydecent taproot on it, but
taproots just a little plantbiology here.
Tap roots form from the seed.
It's that first little radicalthat comes out of the seed, the
(21:53):
first root.
That's what forms a tap root.
If you are taking plant cuttingsand little adventitious or side
roots form from the stem, youdon't get a tap root formally
but we plant them in sort ofconical shaped tubes.
So the roots were growing downin the nursery.
So we have a decent root depth,rooting depth when we put it in
(22:15):
the ground with the hope thatthose kind of new roots will
also kind of form, get down intothe ground and be able to take
up water much like a taprootdoes.
So we think they'll be fairlydrought tolerant.
We've seen that with othertrees we've just planted for
windbreaks and other purposes.
But that's another thing we'llbe testing is how well they can
do under dry periods when thegrass pretty much has stopped
(22:37):
growing.
You know, the hope is thatyou'll still have some kind of
forage for the animals duringthat time.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, yeah, a lot of things and exciting things.
So I think look forward to andsee what comes out of this
project to be able to get moreresources and things you know,
options for our producers.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
So yeah, yeah, and we certainly have.
One of the things we talkedabout was the propagation end
and that's something where we'vefigured out what we think works
best.
But you know, we're not.
Again, we're not we're.
You know we're.
We're university kind ofresearchers with our own little
greenhouse growing up plants foran experiment.
(23:18):
We're not a commercial nurserydoing this by the thousands,
which would have to be done toplant out in a pasture, because
we're probably looking atseveral thousand plants or trees
per well.
Maybe a thousand or two treesper acre would be necessary,
based on the spacing.
Well, maybe a thousand or twotrees per acre would be
necessary, based on the spacing.
So the within row spacing wouldbe about three feet.
The between row spacing kind ofdepends upon the balance of
grass versus lucena that youwant the animals to eat.
(23:39):
That's a nutritional but it'salso a production issue, right?
How fast are those two plantsgrow relative to each other?
But right now we're looking atabout a 15 foot spacing between
the rows.
So you kind of do that math inyour head and you end up with
about a thousand or 2000 treesper acre.
So we're talking about, youknow, tens of thousands of trees
would be needed just to put ina, you know, decent size pasture
(24:01):
somewhere.
So we're working with thecommercial nursery to have them
try out some of the propagationmethods that we've developed and
obviously, you know, adapt andinnovate based on what works for
them, with the hope that it'snot a chicken or egg thing where
there's, you know people whowant to plant it but not enough
plants.
Or you know a nursery that'sready but they don't have
(24:21):
anybody, you know, ordering thenumber they need to keep it
going.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, I was thinking when this gets to a stage where
it's commercially viable, Iwonder if it's something because
I've been doing a lot of workin like carbon credits and
carbon sequestration lately incarbon markets and I'm like to
me this is like a potentialthing that could be used for
that and so you could do someoffsets and credits potentially
to help offset the cost of thatif a producer decides to go that
(24:48):
route later on.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Sure, I had a former student of mine was from New
Zealand and so he went back towork there and their forestry
research agency.
And yet he was looking at thatas well, just planting trees in
pasture, just for the carbonitself.
Yeah, because they were goingto come under some cap and trade
type system there, sort ofsimilar to what California had,
and they were going to includethe ag industry.
(25:12):
So they're like where are areasthat are poor for grazing
purposes?
Plant the trees there and takethe carbon, but here there would
be a working part of thepasture, but yeah, and then you
could look at that.
Of course we have the soilhealth project and the Climate
Smart Commodities Grant that ourUniversity, of folks in our
department and our college gotrecently.
So these are the kinds ofthings they're looking at as
(25:34):
well from soil carbon, not justfrom the plant carbon
perspective, but the other way Ithink that this can really help
from the cost perspective isNRCS.
So if we can develop or adaptconservation practices that are
accepted by NRCS, then that canhelp with the cost share upfront
(25:56):
which is yeah that EQIP programis great.
Yeah, so these are contourplantings or there's several
kinds, I think, of practices wecould adapt.
And so, again, once we kind ofget this established in some of
these private ranches, that'sthe time to go to NRCS and say,
okay, let's look at this and seehow we can go forward.
(26:17):
And they even have their ownconservation innovation grant
program to help support thesekinds of projects, which this is
something we'll definitely belooking at for the future.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Oh, and I know you've mentioned you have a few
ranches you're cooperating withon Big Island.
Are you looking for anyadditional cooperators right now
, or are you kind of like you'redone at this moment in time,
but maybe in the future?
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Always willing to talk to folks about it.
There definitely is anotherrancher who's interested.
I need to get these first twoin the ground and kind of say,
okay, I got these done, nowlet's talk to you.
The grant itself we have canprobably accommodate one more
the ground.
And then kind of say, okay, Igot these done, now let's talk
to you.
You know, the grant itself wehave can probably accommodate
one more.
Okay, so you're almost full.
(27:00):
Basically, okay, we're almostfull, but anybody who's
interested you know we can talkabout.
You know how else we couldaccommodate those folks.
Because, again, we do have ayou know small ability to
propagate you know plants on thehundreds basis and then, like I
said, we do have a nurseryworking with us.
So, you know, if we needed acouple thousand more, you know
that wouldn't be too much of anexpense for us just to provide
the plants if they can say, yeah, I've got a place to plant them
(27:21):
, nice, yep.
So we're making some progress.
The other thing we're working onis getting this information out
there in more than just podcastform.
So we've got a website that isunder development and about
ready to release.
So that'll provide kind of thebackground, some of the things
we've talked about.
We'll definitely provide sortof general updates and progress
(27:42):
on the project, pictures, videos.
I think we'll also have a kindof an interest survey.
So if there are folks who areinterested, there'll be a way
for them to let us know and giveus some information, and we're
also planning to present some ofthis early work at the Hawaii
Agriculture Conference which iscoming up in November.
When is that again?
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I forget November 7th and 8th, I believe.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Yeah, so November 7th and 8th we're hoping to have
either a talk or poster.
We'll try to have a displaytable set up so folks can stop
by and chat and see a little bitmore about the project.
So happy to be able to share itthat way as well.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yes, yes.
So be there.
Yeah, and Hawaii Eye Conferenceis a good one.
Talks a lot about alleverything else that's going on
too.
Yeah, and I think for me, I'mexcited to see this Lucina
project.
I mean, we've seen itestablished in some of the other
areas and how much it improvesdaily gain in the beef cattle
production.
So for me, with our grassfinish folks here, I think
(28:41):
that's going to be an excitingpoint if they can.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yeah, that's been the folks with the most interest.
Are those doing I say pasturefinished?
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Doing I'd say pasture finished.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Not to introduce a new, the change in terminology,
but, yeah, pasture finished beeffor sure, I think this is a
good one.
Yeah, and so those have been thefolks who've been most
interested, but definitelythere's lots of different, you
know, kind of situations inwhich this might be useful from
a silvopasture perspective.
So happy to chat with anybodywho you know and think about
creativity and innovation.
You know that's what this isreally meant to stimulate and
(29:15):
also get some folks who canpropagate it so that we can do
this at a larger scale.
You see, our next phase reallyis to try to get this at a
grazing scale.
We want to see how the animalsrespond.
As Melee said, there has been alittle bit of work, but that
was with the kind of seededvariety that they have in
Australia, and so you know, Ithink that's that insulation is
still going, which is great, andthey have some really good
(29:36):
results, and so we're hoping tojust be able to see how that
works with these seedlesshybrids as well yeah, yeah,
great, great good to hear allthe updates yeah, yeah, and
obviously the other one that theproducer might be interested in
.
Well, you, what's it costing youto get this in the ground?
And certainly because we'redoing this at small scale, you
know, with a lot of control, youknow it's not, you know it's
(29:57):
not cheap, right to get this in,but there are definitely some
things that can help reduce thatcost.
The first one is the fencingissue.
So if you've got paddocksalready kind of fenced off where
you can move animals in and out, and so fencing is not
something you have to put inspecifically for this project,
then that can save a lot ofupfront cost.
In that case, the main thingwould be, you know, the the
(30:18):
planting of the trees themselves.
You got to get that in theground, so some site prep work
would be needed.
The planting itself is done,although that can usually be
done in about a day, dependingupon the size of the crew and
the pasture, and then a littlebit of a follow-up.
Probably weeding will need tobe done, because once you
disturb that soil, it's not justthe grass coming back off and
you can get weeds and thingsmoving in there, but then you
(30:39):
just have to keep the animalsout of there for about a year,
so that you know that's anopportunity cost to the producer
because they can't use thatpasture for well, eight, 10, 10
months, 12 months, until thetrees are large enough that you
can cut them back one time andlet the animals start going in
there and grazing them back down.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, I think fencing and exclosures are an important
part, especially when you startto have to keep the animals out
of it and once they get a tasteof it.
Because from what?
I understand, they like it so.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
Yeah, the producer's most interested, like I already
have koha haole in my pastureand I know the animals like it.
Yeah, they keep them browseddown pretty well, they know they
like it.
And that was actually one ofthe reasons koha haole was a
widespread in Hawaii wasactually it was in C-TAR way
back when actually did promotethis a little bit as a potential
(31:28):
supplement for grazing in areasthat had, you know, not the
best forage grasses.
So, you know, put this in there.
We know the animals will likeit.
Problem was it was a seededvariety and so it just kind of
spread around.
But definitely, you know, theranchers themselves know, you
know they're experiencinganimals as they know they like
it.
So we're hoping we can do it ina manner that's controlled and
productive, yeah, To help themto make it worth the cost of
(31:51):
putting it in there on purpose.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, great, anything else.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
That's most of the things we have right now.
Okay, the main thing is get thisinto our once we get these in
the ground at some of ourcooperating producers we're
hoping next summer that they'llbe at a stage where we can then
have a field day, invite folksout to see it rather than just
sort of talking about it, andthen, you know, we can kind of
get really out and kind of starttalking about the questions of
how we got it in, how it's beendoing, what their concerns are.
(32:17):
You know different ways theycould see that it could be
utilized.
And that's really where youknow getting the juices flowing
and the conversations going isreally going to help us think
about how to work with this inthe future.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Well, good, good.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us today, travis.
We hope our listeners foundthis informative and that it
will be useful to them.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah make sure to follow us on our social media
pages the Livestock PalauLivestock Extension Group, if
you haven't already, and be sureto visit the UH CTAHR Extension
website and the YouTube channellisted in the show notes, and
we'll also list the website forthe Lucina project.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Yes, yes, and, as Mele said, for additional
information about this topic,see those show notes of the
podcast below.
Thanks for listening to thelivestock of all out before we
go show some love for yourfavorite podcast.
Thank you for making us numberthree educational podcast in
Hawaii, by the way, and thenstay tuned for next month's
episode.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, thanks again to our sponsors the Livestock
Extension Group of theUniversity of Kaua'i, manoa
College of Tropical Agricultureand Human Resources, the Center
for Ag Profibility of theUniversity of Nebraska-Lincoln
and the Western SustainableAgriculture Research and
Education Program.
Mahalo for listening.
A hui hou, a hui hou.
Mahalo for listening.
(33:38):
Ahoi ho, ahoi ho.
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