Nutritious ulu could boost Hawaii’s food security

Dear Gov. Ige, Farmers and Backyard Gardeners: Do you want to increase local, healthy food production? Breadfruit or ulu is one of our best answers for food security and health. And it is a beautiful tree with great cultural significance here in Hawaii and across the Pacific.

Ulu is rich in fiber, calcium, potassium, B vitamins and pro-vitamin A carotenoids. It is a “resistant starch” so it does not spike your blood sugar like white rice or potatoes. If more people ate breadfruit, we would cut down on diabetes and other health issues related to our modern refined-starch and high-sugar diet.

It is an easy tree to grow, harvest and care for. It’s much easier than kalo (taro) to grow, harvest and cook. You plant it and don’t need to laboriously dig up and replant like kalo and other root and tuber crops. Also, there are few pests and diseases attacking ulu locally, especially when the trees are grown in mixed plantings with other crops. (We do need to maintain good quarantine practices and restore agriculture inspector positions to ensure this remains the case.)

When people tell me they don’t like ulu, I figure that they have never had it properly cooked, or it was picked at the wrong time – too green or too ripe. Of course the overripe, smashed ones on the ground are not too ono!

As a certified arborist, I recommend keeping backyard trees at a medium height for safe and easy harvesting. To maintain this height, carefully prune the tree after the first harvest, which will happen about three to five years after the tree is planted in the ground.

Our farmers need support from co-ops to store, market and help sell their crops. Having a place to cook and freeze mature and ripe fruit and to make other value-added products like breadfruit flour and chips is one of the next steps that we need in Hawaii.

For a number of years I have worked with and learned from Diane Ragone of the Breadfruit Institute of the National Tropical Botanical Garden. We have given away more than 12,000 keiki trees and sponsored breadfruit cooking contests. Our local chefs are so talented and creative.

With our precious ulu trees, propagated by tissue culture, we decided to make it more like adopting a puppy or kitten. We asked people to promise to plant them in the ground within a few months. We also used social media so people could share how well their keiki ulu trees are growing and producing healthy ono food.

Check out the Breadfruit Institute web page to learn more about planting, harvesting, cooking and the various varieties of ulu. If you received a tree, please let us know how your tree is doing.

The National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai and Kahanu Garden in Hana have amazing breadfruit collections to visit for inspiration.

How to plant an ulu tree:
>> Find a sunny spot away from wires
>> Clear away grass and weeds
>> Use hot mulch to help kill off the grass and weeds
>> Plant the keiki tree
>> Make a ring of mulch around the tree
>> Water daily to establish
>> Replenish the mulch every few months

MORE INFO

Learn when a fruit is ready to harvest in the Breadfruit Production Guide. Download it for free here.

Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable landscape consultant specializing in native, xeric and edible gardens. Reach her at heidibornhorst@gmail.com.