The annual advisory committee meeting of the Tropical HTIRC was held January 28-29, 2019 at the USDA Forest Service Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry in Hilo, Hawai‘i. The meeting brought together scientists and managers for a day of scientific presentations in Hilo addressing issues in restoration of native Hawai‘i forest species including koa, ʻōhiʻa and sandalwood. This was followed by a full day field tour to visit koa plantation research and old-growth natural forests at Keanakolu.
Agenda for Monday, January 28, 2019.
--9:00-10:00am – Welcome. D. Jacobs
—Introductions
—Tropical HTIRC staffing
—Update on current projects and future work – D. Jacobs
--Progeny tests (MS student, PU)
--Seed library
--Cold tolerance (MS student, PU; post-doc, PU)
--Ecophysiology and population adaptiveness (post-docs, PU)
--Nursery propagation and soils (new MS student, UH)
--Clonal propagation (post-docs, PU, UH)
--Thinning and silvicultural systems
--Weed control and koa phytotoxicity
--Community-led forest management (PhD student, PU)
--Ohia disease resistance
--Sandalwood ecology
—Communications and website re-development
—Open discussion / collaborations
--10:00am-11:00am – Updates from partners. DOFAW, HARC, USFS, UH, For Sol, Akaka, etc.
--11:00am-11:30am – Community-managed forests. R. O’Hara
—Rebekah’s PhD project proposal
--11:30am-12:00pm – Adaptive and phenotypic plasticity in koa populations. A. Sugiyama
—Anna’s post-doctoral project proposal
--12:00pm-1:00pm – LUNCH
--1:00pm-1:15pm – Cold tolerance of koa populations. L. Ayala
—Lilian’s MS project proposal
--1:15pm-1:30-pm – Plantation thinning. O. Burney.
—New study at Pu‘u Wa‘awa‘a on thinning for timber and conservation
--1:30pm-1:45pm - Clonal propagation – grafting. K. Rose
--1:45pm-2:00pm - Clonal propagation – vegetative propagation. A. Youkhana.
--2:00pm-2:15pm – Koa disease resistance – update from HARC. N. Dudley
--2:15pm-2:30pm – Koa disease resistance – update from UH. J. Keach
--2:30pm-2:45pm – Sandalwood biology and ecology. I. Sprecher
—State of knowledge, current projects, and future needs
--2:45pm-3:00pm Rapid Ōhiʻa Death. JB Friday and C. Giardina.
—Updates on ROD and disease resistance screening
--3:00pm-4:00pm – Koa growth modeling. N. Koch et al.
—Koa inventory and growth modeling – opportunities and what is missing.
—Forest carbon protocols and relevance to growth modeling. P. Cheng
--4:00pm-4:30pm - Open discussion
—New project priorities
—Partnerships / collaborations
—Funding opportunities
