At Waianae High, they've
By Betty Shimabukuro
struck gold with ogo
Star-BulletinThey could throw one fine hot-tub party back there behind Waianae High School. Thirteen round tanks, big enough to swim in, fill the Marine Science Learning Center's outdoor space each is 5- to 15-feet across, full of sea water and bubbles. A veritable saltwater massage.
Too bad, two problems: no hot water, and plenty ogo.
Pirouetting through the bubbles, hundreds of pounds of seaweed are in a constant tumble. Puts a ticklish crimp in the hot-tub party.
But not in the learning process.
Here at ogo central, Waianae students are running an aquaculture business, farming edible seaweed for sale at the rate of up to 100 pounds a week.
Student Kanai Kahananui grins as he lays out the class' bottom line: "If you get junk ogo you get an F. It's like your baby."
Actually, the ogo business is about one-quarter of the curriculum at director Susan Lum's science center. Through it her 39 students master a tank-full of concepts, from the practical science involved in keeping the ogo alive, to the business skills needed to market their crops.
By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Senior Kanai Kahananui, president of the student-run
Ogo to Go, lifts a huge cluster of seaweed from a holding tank.
They'll be showing off what they've learned at this weekend's Limu Festival in Ewa Beach. They've even given a batch of ogo to the school's food service class so those students can enter the festival's limu recipe contest.In 1993, when the marine center was 5 years old, Lum that's what the kids call her, as in, "Eh, Lum!" was given the charge to create something unique.
"They said, do something different, that's exceptional, that no one else is doing," she recalls. "Actually, the idea kind of came from my mother. She said, 'Why don't you do ogo?' "
Ogo is a relatively easy aquaculture crop, Lum says, compared to, say, mullet, which wouldn't even grow to marketable size in a school year. "With fish, if someone turns off the air and water, everything's belly up by the morning."
Left, from top to bottom:Limu lipe'epe'e: This translucent limu has the flavors of salt, 'opihi and paku'iku'i (surgeonfish).
Limu kala: The all-purpose gold kelp is used for food, washing goggles, healing coral cuts (chew it, then rub saliva into cuts), blessings and to exorcize illness.
'opihi limu: This dark-green limu offsets the saltiness in raw seafood dishes. It grows on the backs of 'opihi shells.
Limu palahalaha: Sea lettuce is eaten with bloody fish such as aku, 'ahi and kawakawa; it counters sluggishness and boils. Cook with pork, chicken or other foods, or dry and use like nori.
Limu wawae'iole: Shaped like rat's feet, it stimulates the appetite. Try it with raw octopus and onions. Filipinos call it popoklo and add it to salads of tomatoes, onions, ginger, shoyu and garlic.
Listed above are just a few of the 200-plus varieties of limu. Sources: Uncle Walter Kamana and Isabella Abbott, professor of botany at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. Photos by Ken Sakamoto and Kathryn Bender.
The Legislature gave her seed money for the equipment, the Oceanic Institute on the Big Island gave her seed stock in the form of 30 pounds of ogo.Ogo is hardy and grows fast. When something does go wrong, it's quick to rebound. Tiny shrimp-like copepods chewed up almost all the ogo early in the school year, so they had to restock with about 50 pounds of new ogo. Within two months, more than 200 pounds were doing their circle dance around the tanks, enough to start selling again.
Lum's classes form four "companies" that compete to produce the best ogo and rake in the most sales. They share in established arrangements with local markets, but beyond that must hustle get to swap meets, set up roadside stands, hawk their product wherever they can.
Their ogo sells for $2.50 to $3 a pound. Lum won't allow price wars and won't let them undercut commercial growers who have overhead costs the students don't.
Kahananui, a senior, is president of one of the companies, Ogo to Go, and is putting in a heavy dose of sweat equity. Like many of the students he puts time at recess, before school and after, into ogo maintenance.
All the tanks have to be emptied weekly, cleaned of algae, the ogo removed, cleaned, weighed and replaced. The tanks must have the proper amount of water, drainage, fertilizer (Miracle Gro) and the correct balance of nitrates and nitrites, Kahananui says. "Little mistakes can really kill your ogo."
If they sell everything, the students can restock for free from the community tanks. If they kill off their crop, they're charged $2.50 a pound.
Proceeds from sales pay for class trips, including an annual excursion to the Big Island, where they visit ancient Hawaiian fish ponds along with modern aquaculture businesses.
Lum says the students rake in the intangibles, learning teamwork (or the business fails), respect for the environment, Hawaiian culture and research skills.
Her assistant, Dana Hoppe, says the class is so popular it's hard to get in. Admission is based more on attitude than grades. "Even if it's kind of a kolohe kid, if they show desire they get a chance," she says. "Sometimes the most kolohe kids turn out to be the best."
Ogo and red limu manauea are two species of the genus, Gracilaria. Ogo nori is the Japanese name for this prevalent Hawaiian species, which has no Hawaiian name, probably because it once grew only in Kaneohe Bay, says limu expert Isabella Abbott. Besides at Waianae High, ogo is cultivated commercially at Heeia fishpond, Kahuku and Keahole, Big Island. Ogo by any other name
