Saving DNA, One Plant at a Time
You are looking at a box of six Hawaiian heirloom orange trees, saved from extinction by the high-tech Terra Nova Nursery in Canby, Washington, about 200 miles from Seattle. Of course, it comes with a monastery story.
About 70 years back Uncle Manuel (who for decades was the manager of the water system that flows through the land that is now Kauai Aadheenam) received a gift from a Hawaiian clan. They gave him a special orange tree, one whose sweetness and low acidity made it rare and valuable. Manuel carried the tree in a gunny sack on horseback from the mountains about 20 miles to the monastery and planted it himself in a field. There is grew and gave its fruits for all these decades.
About 15 years back it began to age. The bottom trunk rotted out during a wet winter, then our cows sped up the process by munching on the sweet leaves and fruits. We put a fence around it, but a year later the cows overwhelmed the fence and ate every leaf. We though it was dead.
But it is a brave orange, and it grew strong branches right out of the rotting trunk. We tried to propagate it. And failed. We enlisted local tree grafters. Who failed. Finally, in desperation to save this legacy fruit tree, we reached out to Harini Korlipara, General Manager of Terra Nova Nursery. She had visited the monastery three years back and said she would try, so we sent her cuttings following her directions.
It worked! Yesterday we opened the box with six very healthy orange trees. We will give one to the living relatives of Uncle Manual in honor of his bringing the mother plant to our land, a couple to local botanical gardens and collectors and the rest will be planted in our own fruit groves. Orange trees can live 70-100 years, so a couple of generations of monks will have sweet oranges for breakfast.
Oranges and other citrus fruits were introduced to the Hawaiian Islands by European explorers. British Captain George Vancouver is often credited with bringing orange seeds or saplings around 1792–1794 as gifts to King Kamehameha I. Hawaii was for a short time the premier supplier of oranges to California until the citrus farms developed in the state.
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