Rescued roots of burned ‘ulu trees are producing dozens more shoots to plant in Lahaina 

HILO — University of Hawai‘i associate professor Noa Kekuewa Lincoln gently picks moss off the dark-brown bark of an ‘ulu log. 

Nearly two years ago, this roughly three-foot section of tree root was buried deep within the smoldering remains of Lahaina town. Now, it’s resting in a Hilo greenhouse surrounded by rich soil and warm sunlight, producing tiny shoots that will return to West Maui to replace the breadfruit trees destroyed by the Aug. 8, 2023 wildfire.

Lincoln, who is focused on indigenous crops and cropping systems, is convinced that it’s impossible to work with plants and not feel “inspired and grateful” for their resilience: “They make goodness and what we need to survive really out of nothing.”

With a little help from Lincoln’s team in Hilo and community members on Maui, portions of the burned historic ‘ulu trees of Lahaina — some whose documentation goes back more than 150 years and are likely even older — are thriving in conditions that will allow them to potentially produce hundreds of trees from a single segment.

About 30 trees grown in Lincoln’s lab have already returned to Lahaina, with Lincoln estimating that the number will reach 50 trees by the second anniversary of the fire.

“I think we all knew that there would be some success, but I think we’re all pretty stoked at how successful it has been,” said Hokuao Pellegrino of Noho‘ana Farm in Waikapū.

Pellegrino and Lincoln, along with groups like Nā ‘Aikāne o Maui, the Lahaina Restoration Foundation and Hawai‘i Farmers Union United, got permission to go into the burn zone in September 2023 to check on the ‘ulu trees that had survived the fire. 

Kaipo Kekona, a Lahaina resident and president of Hawai‘i Farmers Union United, said community members had tried to water some of the remaining trees. Some, like the tree on Waiola Church’s burned property, started producing dozens of shoots, but others needed a little more help.

“Knowing that we had a really short window, and seeing the devastation of those trees, we were like, we gotta start digging out and pull out as much lateral roots and root suckers that we could find, because pretty much every single one of those trees were burnt to a crisp,” Pellegrino said. 

Two to three segments were cut from each of the 11 remaining historic trees. Lincoln said they had to excavate as far down as 10 to 12 feet for one of the most historic trees, which was located in the parking lot across from the old Kobe’s Steakhouse. The tree already had been struggling in its urban confines before the molten metal and asphalt turned the ground into “a big imu” and essentially cooked the roots.

It was one of the few they couldn’t pull living roots from — “a sore spot for all of us,” Pellegrino said. 

The root extractions were carefully transported to Hilo, where they joined dozens of other ‘ulu trees that are growing in the UH College of Tropical Agriculture greenhouse on the outskirts of town. For years, Lincoln and his team have been growing ‘ulu trees and selling them to local farmers as a way to spread them around the island and create a sustainable system of keeping the program funded. Lahaina’s ‘ulu trees will not be sold. They are headed straight back to West Maui. 

In the greenhouse, they have their own separate corrugated metal tubs where they have been placed in a bed of soil to develop roots. Their barks have been scarred to help them produce more shoots, and once those shoots grow to about the size of a pencil, they are cut and placed in a pointed tube called a dibble where they develop their own roots. Eventually they will be potted and sent back to Lahaina. 

Every time a shoot is cut, three or four more sprout in its place, making them more productive over time.

“The more you harvest, the more shoots it will make,” Lincoln said.

Lincoln said there are countless stories of how breadfruit trees were first brought to the Hawaiian islands. The most famous tells of the god Kū who took on an earthly form, married a human wife and was living happily with his family until a great famine hit the land. Kū sacrifices himself and sinks into the ground, out of which the breadfruit tree emerges.

There are also tales of fishermen who were blown off course into the magical underwater world of the god Kāne and brought back breadfruit trees, or the story of the boy who climbed a coconut tree that reached into Tahiti and brought back a breadfruit tree. 

“But all of the stories talk about somebody leaving Hawai‘i and returning with the breadfruit tree,” Lincoln said. “And so I think it’s quite clear that that literally happened, that people came to Hawai‘i, established society, were growing and expanding, and at some point, these return voyages to the South Pacific resulted in somebody later introducing the breadfruit trees to the islands.” 

Some of the earliest archaeological evidence for breadfruit in Hawai‘i traces back to the late 1100s and early 1200s, Lincoln said. 

Years before the fire, Pellegrino, Kekona and other community members started surveying and identifying the historic trees of Lahaina, specifically ones that were Hawaiian cultivars that had mo‘olelo, or stories tied to them. Documents from the Great Māhele, the land division that took place under King Kamehameha III in the mid-1800s, mention ‘ulu trees on properties in Lahaina, whose traditional name, Malu ‘Ulu o Lele, reflected the “shaded breadfruit grove of Lele” that spanned the landscape from Launiupoko to Wahikuli. 

In West Maui, ‘ulu is more than a tree, Kekona said. It’s an ancestor in the way Native Hawaiians see their ancestral connection to kalo.

“It served and fed its community for generations,” Kekona said. “That’s like a mother, a grandmother, a matriarch. These ‘ulu trees are this to us.” 

Citing news stories from old Hawaiian newspapers in the late 1800s, Pellegrino said sugar companies tried to cut down and burn many of the ‘ulu trees. That effort combined with the “slow decline” driven by development eventually pushed out the once thriving breadfruit forest, Lincoln said. 

Now, the community has the opportunity to save the remaining trees “and keep that ancestral connection” alive, said Kekona, who is managing a 12-acre agricultural education center in West Maui.

Currently, Kekona is caring for 21 of the trees that will eventually be planted on Kamehameha Schools land around Makahiki time going into the winter season. 

Pellegrino said people are constantly asking when the ‘ulu trees will be ready and whether they can plant them. He said the trees not only represent a way to feed the community but also educate the public about the history and how to use a canoe crop that is so central to Hawaiian culture but often goes to waste because some people don’t know how to cook it and use it. But the tragedy has reinvigorated the urge to learn about the history and significance of the things that were lost in the wildfire.  

“And so I think there’s going to be a much more warmer welcoming to these trees when they come back to Lahaina,” he said. 

As Lahaina rebuilds and the land heals, Lincoln said the key to making sure the replanted ‘ulu trees and their surrounding environment can thrive is to listen to the needs of the land. Lincoln often works with beginner farmers, and he said people often go into it with the mindset of what they want to grow and “how do I make this land do that” instead of wondering what will actually thrive on the land. 

“I think it’s just the perspective and to give the land agency and voice in our decisions,” Lincoln said.

“I think in terms of not only long-term sustainability and resilience, but also just the efficiency of using our resources effectively and wisely. I think that slight different perspective changes all of it.”