Alumni News

Celebrate the careers, contributions, and well-deserved retirement of HNFAS faculty Brent Buckley and Douglas Vincent and Extension agent Glen Fukumoto on December 17, from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in Ag Sci 219. Attendees are requested to contribute either monetary donations or potluck foods. 

The USDA will be providing $3.7 million in assistance to fruit and vegetable growers in 16 states, including Hawai‘i, through a GAP Assistance Program to increase market access by covering the costs of undergoing a voluntary USDA Harmonized Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) audit. The CES farm food safety team will work with growers to help them understand and meet the requirements to pass these types of audits. 

The annual Hawai‘i County CTAHR Thanksgiving Lu‘au tradition has been revived for the first time in about a decade, thanks to the staff at the Komohana Research and Extension Center and retired Sea Grant agent Howard Takata. CTAHR staff came together to fire up the imu at Howard’s residence and cooked a veritable feast worthy of the tradition. 

A laudatory article in the Maui News spotlights Extension agent Cynthia Nazario-Leary (TPSS). Cynthia is also a CTAHR alumna, with a master’s degree in horticulture and a doctorate in Natural Resources and Environmental Management. Now, as an agent in urban horticulture, she is trialing sunflower varieties, overseeing the Bee House, and coordinating the Maui Master Gardeners.

The first study to implicate ambrosia beetles in Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death (ROD) has been published by CTAHR researchers and co-authors, who identified Xyleborus ferrugineus, a non-native beetle, as one culprit in the spread of Ceratocystis lukuohia in the Puna area of the Big Island. C. lukuohia is a tree-colonizing fungus that leads to widespread ROD in ʻōhiʻa lehua trees.