Kava Science Kava cultivation requires a human hand.

[The Kap'n]

This one is old news for most of the old timers here, but I figured I'd just go back over this interesting fact about kava again. It really says something to me that kava has to have a human touch in order to live. Kava and man are very much a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. I know it's not the only plant we've cultivated to sterility, but there's something special about it in kava's case, at least to me.

Throughout the millennia of kava cultivation, kava lost its ability to produce seeds and reproduce by expressing a "self-incompatibility mechanism" or SI. This occurs in flowering plants to prevent inbreeding and promote outcrossing.

New kava growth develops from burying stem nodes in soil. Roots develop off of the node, and in 3-5 years the plant is harvested.

Davis, Richard I., and John Frederick Brown. Kava (Piper methysticum) in the South Pacific: its importance, methods of cultivation, cultivars, diseases and pests. No. 436-2016-33829. 1999.

Linked below is a patent for kava cultivation. It's quite interesting in that it seems to suggest planting kava in raised beds. Cultivation of the roots looks simplified by using some sort of "rake" attachment to a forklift and just lifting the entire root collection at once.

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/bd/80/41/d822d6e3917a51/US6601527.pdf

 

[AndrewG]

Raised mounds are not anything new. I've seen this done before. The late great Anakala Jerry Konanui has information online about various types of above ground kava growing techniques.

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

This is not really new at all. I introduced William Julian to this growing method a long time ago. He was a big time Papaya farmer who was going to get into kava farming back then but he quit kava farming when the kava ban came in Europe. This is a great way to grow kava, I still use it today.
And yes Jerry Konanui was also doing this a long time ago.
The only bad thing about this way of planting is the Pigs love to root through the mounds of kava. So I fence in all my kava.
Thanks for posting this @Kapmcrunk .
Aloha.

Chris

 

[The Kap'n]

Raised mounds are not anything new. I've seen this done before. The late great Anakala Jerry Konanui has information online about various types of above ground kava growing techniques.

This is not really new at all. I introduced William Julian to this growing method a long time ago. He was a big time Papaya farmer who was going to get into kava farming back then but he quit kava farming when the kava ban came in Europe. This is a great way to grow kava, I still use it today.
And yes Jerry Konanui was also doing this a long time ago.
The only bad thing about this way of planting is the Pigs love to root through the mounds of kava. So I fence in all my kava.
Thanks for posting this @Kapmcrunk .
Aloha.

Chris

Are heavy equipment like what's mentioned in the patent used to uproot? I found that bit the most interesting, how they fashioned some sort of rake that they could just stab into the pile and lift the entire plant up roots and all. Admittedly there are far more smarter people here when it comes to cultivation

 

[Alia]

This is not really new at all. I introduced William Julian to this growing method a long time ago. He was a big time Papaya farmer who was going to get into kava farming back then but he quit kava farming when the kava ban came in Europe. This is a great way to grow kava, I still use it today.
And yes Jerry Konanui was also doing this a long time ago.
The only bad thing about this way of planting is the Pigs love to root through the mounds of kava. So I fence in all my kava.
Thanks for posting this @Kapmcrunk .
Aloha.

Chris

Chris has the history totally right as I remember it. Further research tells us of nikava tapuga whereby the kava plant is grown in a hollow tree fern stump.
Lateral roots to 2 meters. This is manipulated kava and part of Vanuatu mythology. Plant of the powerful spirit Mwatiktiki of agricultural magic. I always felt Mr. Julian and the Pierce Bros. had no business using western law to patent indigenous knowledge. But then again they enhanced the method, still bothers me in a moral way.

 

[Gourmet Hawaiian Kava]

Are heavy equipment like what's mentioned in the patent used to uproot? I found that bit the most interesting, how they fashioned some sort of rake that they could just stab into the pile and lift the entire plant up roots and all. Admittedly there are far more smarter people here when it comes to cultivation

Yes they were going to use a modified forklift for this but it never came about. It is interesting that C. Brewer had a kava company and they modified a potato harvester to do the job, and it worked well. Aloha.

Chris

 

[kastom_lif]

I've heard from some people who went to Maewo that they'd grow kava on mounds there, too. Not round pu'us, but long ridges to help redirect heavy rainwater. It makes sense, 'cause Maewo gets some of the heaviest rain in all of Vanuatu.

 

[AndrewG]

This is not really new at all. I introduced William Julian to this growing method a long time ago. He was a big time Papaya farmer who was going to get into kava farming back then but he quit kava farming when the kava ban came in Europe. This is a great way to grow kava, I still use it today.
And yes Jerry Konanui was also doing this a long time ago.
The only bad thing about this way of planting is the Pigs love to root through the mounds of kava. So I fence in all my kava.
Thanks for posting this @Kapmcrunk .
Aloha.

Chris

Yes the chicken wire (I think it's called, or pig wire) can come in handy too. I think burying it subsurface could be of some benefit.

 

[AndrewG]

I've heard from some people who went to Maewo that they'd grow kava on mounds there, too. Not round pu'us, but long ridges to help redirect heavy rainwater. It makes sense, 'cause Maewo gets some of the heaviest rain in all of Vanuatu.

Interesting, I didn't witness much mound growing on other islands but it makes sense.

 

[AndrewG]

Chris has the history totally right as I remember it. Further research tells us of nikava tapuga whereby the kava plant is grown in a hollow tree fern stump.
Lateral roots to 2 meters. This is manipulated kava and part of Vanuatu mythology. Plant of the powerful spirit Mwatiktiki of agricultural magic. I always felt Mr. Julian and the Pierce Bros. had no business using western law to patent indigenous knowledge. But then again they enhanced the method, still bothers me in a moral way.

Using it is one thing, trying to patent it is another. Intellectual property rights is a real thing. I can see how this strategy can become condeluded though in the argument about what is indigenous and what's not. Taking out kava there is much to say about planting methods. If they were just trying to grow it I think I would be supportive.

 

[kastom_lif]

Plant of the powerful spirit Mwatiktiki of agricultural magic.

I've read that Mwatikitiki is the Tannese version of Qat/Tagaro, though I'm not sure how accurate that is. Mwatikitiki is totally a similar name to Māui-tikitiki in New Zealand, yet the name Tagaro matches up with Tangaroa/Kanaloa, who is a different entity.

 

[kastom_lif]

Although, if all these spirits are culturally descended from Qat or (Tagaro), you gotta remember that Qat (or Tagaro) had eleven brothers who are also all named Tagaro. If I had to guess, I'd say that Maui's name came from Marawa, Qat's spider companion.

 

[Alia]

Although, if all these spirits are culturally descended from Qat or (Tagaro), you gotta remember that Qat (or Tagaro) had eleven brothers who are also all named Tagaro. If I had to guess, I'd say that Maui's name came from Marawa, Qat's spider companion.

Really fascinating background there @kastom_lif , thanks . Some of my Kamehameha School friends tell me that Maui was a real person who became so revered (feel deep respect or admiration ) that he became a god . He is also credited for stealing 'awa so the common people could partake.

 

[kastom_lif]

Really fascinating background there @kastom_lif , thanks . Some of my Kamehameha School friends tell me that Maui was a real person who became so revered (feel deep respect or admiration ) that he became a god . He is also credited for stealing 'awa so the common people could partake.

Maybe every new group of islands to be settled adapted their folklore and religion to suit their new home. Or, maybe the spirits that followed the settlers changed?

So, Maui wen cockaroach 'awa for us guys for drink um? What can I say, except, TANKS!

 

[kastom_lif]

The background, as i understand it, is that Qat (alternatively named Kpwat, Kpwet, or Ikwpat depending on the local language) is the cultural hero of the Banks islands in northern Vanuatu. He's a good guy, though he likes to play tricks too. The islands south of the Banks group: Maewo, Ambae, etc, have a very similar entity that they call Tagaro.

Tagaro changing to Tangaroa in central Polynesia is not that big of a name shift. Going from Tangaroa to Kanaloa makes perfect sense too, if you consider how words change between Hawaiian and other Poly languages.

Central Polynesian Languages	Modern Hawaiian, based on Kamehameha I's Big Island dialect
/t/	/k/
/r/	/l/
/k/	/'/
/b/	/p/