Mauna Kea Oral History Appendix - Office of Mauna Kea Management

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You know, during our time nobody knew, if the cattle eats the grass, we say that’s good
grass.
[chuckling]
That’s the only test we had.
Yes.
But, as time went on, before I retired, we send this particular grass or any you know to
the lab and take a tissue analysis. And the tissue analysis shows you exactly, you know.
What it’s value is
Yes. Protein content of this plant and the fiber content and moisture content and all that.
We found this fountain grass has hardly any value, nutrients. Although it’s a high fiber, it’s
all dry matter.
Yes. I understand, you know where Springer mä lived
Down Hu‘ehu‘e.
Hu‘ehu‘e. Old Judge Mathewman, he had the house area first. He brought the fountain
grass in as an ornamental.
That’s what they do, in California they use that for landscaping.
Yes. At one time we were even thinking of harvesting the grass and selling that seed to
the mainland because they said they use that as an ornamental there. But there is one
state, I forgot where it was, they said their variety of fountain grass, the seed is not
viable. So they were trying to get our seed. They want the seed for ornamental. It’s
ornamental for the desert area.
Yes, desert.
Yes.
They use it around the house.
Or pampas, like you know it looks like the pampas, the big pampas grass. Ke‘ämoku was
the place that you folks, you set up some plots
Yes.
Did you find anything that could compete well with the fountain grass
Yes.
What did you find
We had the star grass and we had several other varieties…we worked very closely with
the soil conservation people. And we brought in various types of grass seed that we
planted.
The thing of course is, if you’ve got one invasive kind of pest. And if another one comes
in, what will happen Would it have had an affect on what’s left of the native you know.
Or was it better
Yes, right. Then we went further once, we tried, how can we get this grass, it’s so dry To
get some moisture into the grass. Called the extension agent, and we got together, we
tried fertilizing this little patch. In the pasture of over a thousand acres in the pasture of
Ke‘ämoku area, we just put a plot there. Small little plot about ten by ten or so. We
fertilized it with sulphur sulphate…I forget what else. Anyway, the basic ingredient was
sulphur. The cattle went in there, eat the grass. They loved the grass. If you put
sulphur…
Mauna Kea– “Ka Piko Kaulana o ka ‘Äina”
Kumu Pono Associates LLC
A Collection of Oral History Interviews (HiMK67-050606) A:244