The Hawai‘i Public Seed Initiative held the first of its five island workshops, "Seed Basics for Farmers and Gardeners," on Kaua‘i, November 6-7, 2011 and has subsequently held these workshops on O‘ahu, Maui, and Moloka‘i in 2012.

The final workshop in this series will be held on the Big Island at the Amy Greenwell Ethnobotanical Garden in Captain Cook on November 4-5, 2012. On Friday evening, November 2, there will be a seed exchange open to the public, from 3:00-5:00 p.m. All school gardens on the island are invited to attend this seed exchange.

For those attending the workshop, camping will be available at the Garden on Friday and Saturday evenings - CAMPING RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED. Please call 756-5310 to make camping reservations.

These 2-day Workshops are designed to create a practical working knowledge of seed growing, botany and biology, selection, harvesting, cleaning, and saving of various types of seed.

Click here to read more about the Kaua‘i workshop.

Click here to read more about the O‘ahu workshop.

Click here to read more about the Maui workshop.

Click here to read more about the Moloka‘i workshop.

Click here to read more about the Hawai‘i Island workshop.

The two-day workshops, funded by a Ceres Trust grant awarded to The Kohala Center, are designed to create a practical working knowledge of seed growing, botany and biology, plant selection, seed harvesting, cleaning, and saving. Each workshop will include hands-on fieldwork with a focus on growing lettuce and tomato to seed as well as taro propagation. The Hawai‘i workshop will include both lecture presentations and hands-on fieldwork so participants can practice harvesting, selecting, cleaning, and storing fresh seed. Strategies to account for differences in elevation, weather patterns, and rainfall will be discussed.

The Workshops cover:
• History of Seed in Hawai‘i and the Global Perspective on Seed
• Seed Production Basics - Botany and Biology
• Maintaining Crop Genetics: Cultivation, Selection, Harvesting, and Proper Storage of Seed
• Strategies to account for differences in elevation, weather patterns, and rainfall will be discussed.
• Kalo Propagation and Production
• Variety Trials and Trial Log
• Presentations and hands-on field work will cover selection, roughing, and "wet" & "dry" seed cleaning techniques.

The Hawai‘i Public Seed Initiative Workshops are made possible through the support of the CERES Trust.