Welcome to Mokuleia Regenerative Farm
Mokuleia Regenerative Farm is our demonstration farm and budwood bank for our nursery. Our 5 acre lot is the typical size of most parcels zoned for Agriculture 1, which makes it a good demonstration for others starting their farms. Like many other parcels of agriculture land, our ‘aina was overgrown with Haole Koa and Guinea Grass and was historical farmed in sugar cane. Bringing this fallow land into production took thoughtful consideration and consultation with past land owners, neighbors and fellow-farmers. We currently are trailing new agroforestry design concepts as we open-up new sections of the farm.
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We have a spectrum of agroforestry designs demonstrated on our farm, ranging in planting density and diversity of successional crops. These demonstrations are a great way to help you select the design and plants for your farm. We open up our demo farm for monthly nursery sales and workshops. We also demonstrate how we use a powerful design and planning tool that is being customized for crops commonly grown in Hawai’i, called Overyield (developed by Propagate Ventures).
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Our soil and carbon building systems are intended to regenerate our growing areas and to create potting mix blends for our nursery. We’ve designed these systems to maximize the diversity of carbon sources, from liquid source of carbon, which are more readily plant available to more stable sources of carbon, which stay in the soil longer to support the growth of our crops and microbial communities. Our systems make it easy to continually build-up our soil tilth and maintain a optimal carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio. These systems start with a diversity of ‘functional’ plants. Organic matter from these plants are processed into our compost and vermicast systems or used to build up organic matter directly in our growing areas.
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We plant a wide variety of avocado, citrus, and mango we use as budwood for our grafted fruit trees. We also plant varieties of crops that can be air-layered (e.g. ulu) or propagated through cuttings (e.g. mulberry and manny, many other shrub and pernnial plants). We also grow a variety of pernnial root crops, such as olena which we harvest and use for the next growing season. Planting a diverse variety and cultivars of plants is important to a regenerative farming system.
Creating the conditions to foster a healthy and robust soil food web is essential to growing healthy crops and regenerating the land. Since different plants have unique nutrient requirements, they produce root exudates that feed different types of soil microbes. So maximizing the varieties and types of plants you grow also increases the diversity of your soil microbial community. Selecting a variety of plants with a diversity of root systems also helps break-up any compacted soil layers and improve nutrient cycling from the deep mineral reserves in the subsoil and water table.
Commercial Agroforestry Design
About the design: Our most recent design demonstrated a commercial-style of agriculture. We planted in rows to make our crops easier to harvest and manage commercially rather than planting in densely planted plot, which is more appropriate for a homestead. With mango as our long-term cash crop, we intercropped our mango tree row with kalo and a diversity of herbs to provide us with a short-term (crops with a date of maturity around 3 months) and mid-term crop (crops with a date of maturity around 6 months to a 1.5 years). Our perennial herbs were planted as starters, so they were ready to harvest after a month in the ground, while our kalo will be ready to harvest in 9 months.
We ‘alley cropped’ with a row of carrots, beets, cilantro and marigold. The marigolds serve as pest management, mainly against pest nematodes that could damage our commercial root crops. The cilantro was direct seeded in successions into the bed at the same time the marigold, carrots and beets were seeded. Planting the bed densely reduced weed pressure.
Prepping the growing area & managing nutrients: Prior to planting, we prepared these growing areas, we started with a soil paste taste by sampling our irrigation water and soil. This showed the available nutrients available in the soil solution (the part of the soil where nutrients can be readily taken-up by your crops) and the nutrient contributions and any bio-carbonates from our irrigation water. Based on these results, we amended the soil with gypsum to address our calcium deficiency, a broad spectrum trace mineral (kelp and azomite), vermicast and compost (as a source of carbon), and bonemal (as a slow-release form of nitrogen until our perennial legume ground covers grow in as the source of nitrogen). We also applied a ‘soil drench’ to address our molybdenum and boron deficiencies. We did not add cobalt because our nutrients showed this trace mineral was already present in a plant available form for our crops. Since both cobalt and molybdenum are needed to support the services of nitrogen-fixing microbes, if these trace minerals are deficient in your soil, you will not receive the nitrogen fertilizing properties of your nitrogen-fixing plants. These nutrients often needed to be added to the soil since they are anions (negatively charged ions), and are not strongly retained in the soil (which is also negatively charged), unlike nutrients that are cations (have a positive charge), like Calcium and Magnesium.
Regenerative Agriculture Design, Crop and Business Tools
We’ve been inspired by the work of Propagate Ventures to create design tools that also measure yields, cost of inputs, carbon sequestration potential and other elements helpful for those running regenerative agriculture operations.
Nutritional Farming
Soil Health - Human Health: Degenerative and autoimmune diseases are alarmingly high in our population. These disease are directly correlated to toxic chemicals and pollutants in our soil, water and air. Stressful work and home conditions, lack of connection to the place and not having a sense of purpose also contributes towards toxins created from internal stress. Luckily, nature is not only regenerative and but also intelligent and adaptive! Like bees and other living organisms, humans serve an important role in creating the conditions in our environment to enable diversity to thrive while cultivating our food. We have so much to learn from the intelligent agriculture systems and practices developed by the people who first began to work with this ‘aina and from many of the Native Hawaiians who lead agriculture and stewardship programs in our communities. If you want to start a regenerative farm, the first thing you can do is to give back to one of the Native-Hawaiian led farm-based programs in your community. Donate your volunteer time and anything else to mahalo all of this work and service they provide to the land you’re fortunate to steward. Learn about the history of your land and the cultural leaders in your community (both past and present). If you wan to begin to understand the Native Hawaiian perspective of health and well-being and how much it is based on connection to ‘aina, reading Pilinahā: An Indigenous Framework for Health is one place to start.
In learning working on our own ‘aina and with farmers on each island to restore the health and function of our soils and the organisms that are fundamental to this health- I’ve come across so many direct parallels to our own human health. In creating the conditions to regenerate the land, we can regenerate our own bodies and those of our families and community.
We learn so much from others and are greatly inspired by the Cancer Warriors, Kōkua Kalihi Valley and other amazing communities of people who are actively working with the ‘aina and diet to improve human health. We are actively cultivating plants used by those struggling with autoimmune and degenerative disease, but particularly those battling with cancer.
Image above: Aloe Arborescens -Torch Aloe – Super tall at 6 to 12 feet when full sized. Long arching rosette, forming thick, large leaves of Arborescens grow slightly recurved at the ends. Perfectly suited for use as a “Living fence” it multiplies fast and planted in multiples will fill in the empty spots pronto. Large colorful flower spikes, like torches, pop up in profusion during the spring to summer sporting tubular flowers in the deepest of orange to red coloration. As with all the aloe, the flowers produce nectar and are attractive to many kinds of birds and bees. I grow this plant because of a personal friend battling stage 3 breast cancer was able to radically improve indicators on her bloodwork by using this plant medicine.