If it's old cane land, you're located in zone 11, with pretty good soil for Hawaii. Your only problems might be too much rain for certain plants and windy conditions.

Aloha Sarita,

A lot of the old cane land could use soil amendments. They used to put a LOT of fertilizers and chemicals on the cane crops since they were planting one crop year after year. There were also some fairly ferocious poisons used and I'm not sure what year they stopped using those. I don't know if you can get a certified organic crop from old cane land because of the previous chemical use. Most of the fields were irrigated, too, when it was feasible. The old cane fields have also been fallow since 1995 and there has been some significant erosion in some areas. The soil will most likely be very acidic with almost no nitrogen. Lime and a cover crop to be plowed under might be a good thing, IMHO.

If the land has been fallow since '95 or before, there will probably be small trees and guinea grass to remove before you can plant anything, too. Some folks fence and run cows until the guinea grass is munched down somewhat. Guinea grass can get to about fifteen feet tall, so it isn't something most folks would use a mower on. Some folks use Caterpillars to plow with, if you happen to have a friend with a handy bulldozer. Otherwise a bit of fencing and some goats or cows will remove a lot of the tall grasses.

Most of the fields are sloped and cut with gulches, so if you are doing any plowing or tractor work, then it might be a good thing to follow the contours and "terrace" the slopes whenever possible to slow down the erosion. Of course, some of the slopes are too steep to run a tractor sideways on. A friend wrecked his lawn tractor by mowing it on too steep of a sideways slope. It had a gravity fed oil system and the engine didn't get enough oil and fried.

Which specific area of the coast? What elevation? What crops are you considering? Each area of the coast gets a different amount of rainfall and what crops work in one area don't always thrive in another even though they are only several miles apart. Elevation also plays an important part of the climate for each area.

Actually, we don't really care about "hardiness" zones, the usual consideration around here is the "chill hours" each plant requires. If a plant needs over 200 chilling hours, then it probably wouldn't work along the coast here. If you have more elevation, say 1,500 feet or more, then you could probably get fruit from plants that need a minimum of 400 chilling hours. You can also plant the higher elevation crops such as protea, coffee, tea and lavenders.

Some areas of the coast can be supplied with agricultural water from the Hamakua Ditch, they are trying to get that working again. It was working, then a big storm wrecked parts of it, but I think most of it is back again.

Another consideration for crops is the lack of farm workers and crop processing facilities. Whatever crop you'd like to plant, figure on minimal workers and processing facilities.

Hmm, I've been thinking you've got several acres of old cane land to deal with, if it is just your back yard, then most of this info wouldn't really apply or it might be a bit overkill.

A hui hou,
Cathy