Alumni News

Leucaena is a versatile, adaptable, nitrogen-fixing tree widely grown in the tropics as cattle forage. It’s high in protein, and cattle eat it readily. But most people in Hawai‘i know it as the weedy shrub koa haole, covered in rattling brown pods full of seeds. Over the decades, CTAHR has developed a few seedless, and therefore sterile, hybrids of Leucaena that won’t become weedy.

The USDA Farm Service Agency will soon begin accepting applications for its Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). This program will provide direct payments to farmers and ranchers to offset losses resulting from price volatility and market supply-chain reductions from COVID-19. More details about CFAP direct payments will be announced soon.

Gov. David Ige signed a powerful new amendment to the Hawai‘i Administrative Rules that restricts imports of any plants in the myrtle family (Myrtaceae). Ten years in the making, the rule will protect forests from new diseases, particularly myrtle rust (Austropuccina psidii). 

Get ready to applaud the many and amazing accomplishments of CTAHR’s Spring 2020 graduating class! Our first Virtual Convocation ceremony, hosted by the Academic and Student Affairs Office (ASAO), is happening this Friday, May 15.

CTAHR Dean Nicholas Comerford will host a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday, May 19, 11:00 a.m.–12:00 noon. Please mark your calendars now. He wants to use this time wisely and provide as much information as possible, so Dean Comerford invites the CTAHR ‘ohana to submit questions ahead of time via Google Docs. Your questions will be taken until this Friday, May 15, at 4:30 p.m.