Every Sunday, "Back in the Day" looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.
KEKAHA, Kauai » The demand for canned passion fruit juice on the New York market will in part be supplied in the future through the culture of passion fruit by the Kekaha chapter of the Future Farmers of America.
This announcement was made today by Masato Sugihara, adviser of the Kekaha FFA unit. Mr. Sugihara said that the Kekaha Sugar Co., Ltd., is setting aside a 28 acre tract of land at Waiawa for a community project to be cultivated by the members of the Kekaha FFA.
Mr. Sugihara plans to plant the entire area to orchard fruit and will adopt as quick return crops papaias, pohas and passion fruit.
He said that he arrived at this decision after visiting the factory operated by Ryoichi Tateishi and his sons at Kalaheo.
The Tateishi family has developed a small business in bottled jams, jellies and fruit juices. Its entire output is made from Hawaiian grown fruits.
The Tateishis recently began bottling juice from passion fruit raised by H.H. Brodie at Hanapepe.
Mr. Tateishi sent samples of the juice to New York and received orders which he can not fill because of an insufficient supply of passion fruit.
Mr. Sugihara said that he became interested in the development of the passion fruit industry on Kauai two years ago when he was assistant FFA instructor at Hanapepe. At that time he brought the first seeds of the passion fruit to Kauai. He obtained these seeds from the Pensacola experiment station.
The original seeds were planted at the Hanapepe FFA farm and Mr. Brodie received his stock from that farm. He has since planted three acres to passion fruit. He reaped his first large crop this year. The Tateishi factory took the entire crop.
The combination of market and factory at hand has convinced Mr. Sugihara that his FFA boys can build up a profitable business on the land which the Kekaha plantation is setting aside for their use.
The Waiawa farm will be located on the mauka side of the main Mana highway opposite the old Knudsen residence. It is at present covered with rock, kiawe and weeds and is located on land not suitable for sugar cane.
