Breadfruit trees have traveled far 鈥� first carried by Polynesians 4,400 miles across the Pacific to Hawaii from Papua New Guinea. brought it to the Caribbean. But perhaps its most unlikely journey was to a greenhouse on the outskirts of Fort Collins.
The breadfruit cutting in a pot at is a remnant of one of the trees on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where a 2023 wildfire killed at least 102 people, razed 2,200 homes and businesses, caused $5.5 billion in damages and wiped out the historic town of Lahaina.
If all goes well, the laboratory will use tissue culture technology to generate thousands of new breadfruit trees to send back to Maui. It is a departure for Summit, where the main work is using the technique to grow healthy seed potatoes.
鈥淭his is going to be very challenging,鈥� said Jennifer Matsuura, the lab鈥檚 operations and special projects manager. 鈥淭his is probably going to be a one-to-three-year process for us.鈥�
A panoply of initiatives is underway to restore Lahaina, once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and perhaps revive the land and traditions from before the whaling ships, the sugar plantations, the tourists and the fire came.
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