Koa wood is only from Hawaii...beware of pretenders

Moore Bettah Ukuleles said:
Oh boy, so I can boast that I have an ukulele that was made from koa grown in Fremont California! Just the mention of the word Fremont and......aaahhhhh, the vision it conjures up. I'm booking my next vacation there.
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BWAAAA-HAAAAA - I wouldn't, were I you. :biglaugh:
 
hoosierhiver said:
Just found this.
Apparently there is a koa enthusiast near San Francisco growing koa and spreading the word.

http://www.cloudforest.com/cafe/forum/61792.html
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Thanks for posting that link, Mike. Very interesting stuff. I thought this bit, in particular, was worth repeating here:

"The point I want to make is to dispel the naive belief that a tree that can be cajoled to survive in any particular climate will produce wood in that climate that is equal in quality and value to the wood from wild-grown trees in situ. Many fortunes have been lost in speculative plantings of Brazilian rosewood, Maccassar ebony, pink ivory and cocobolo (and this all within the tropics where the trees grow well). Plantation-grown specimens just don't produce the same figure as wild-harvested trees. Maybe they would eventually if left long enough, but figure is an old-growth characteristic and time is money in forestry. Plantation forestry then, is best suited when the expected outcome is for straight-grained unfigured woods such as teak and mahogany."
 
GVlog said:
Then you could cut it down and make one of these!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesmallobject/4601214809/
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Thats so beast. I found a website that sells seeds... I seriously want to buy some and grow a koa bonsai. that would be awesome to have. I know it couldn't survive totally outdoors in my climate, and most trees can't survive indoors, but I wonder about a heated greenhouse during the winter... just a thought...
 
Moore Bettah Ukuleles said:
Oh boy, so I can boast that I have an ukulele that was made from koa grown in Fremont California! Just the mention of the word Fremont and......aaahhhhh, the vision it conjures up. I'm booking my next vacation there.
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Well, Chuck, people tend to holiday in places which are different from where they live. Having been to Fremont many times, and Hawaii none, I can still assure you that Fremont is different from Hawaii. And probably fits your mental picture pretty nicely. Nearby Hayward could be a nice place for day-trips out during your holiday. What someone would do given a whole day in Hayward? The mind boggles...

Honestly, I would think it's MUCH too dry in Fremont to grow Koa which would have the same characteristics as Hawaiian Koa.

I find this thread funny, only as the topic has come up SO many times, I didn't think there was much confusion about Koa vs. other types of acacia. But maybe that's just a sign I'm joining the ranks of the wood geeks. :)
 
southcoastukes said:
O.K, here's a long lecture on tropical forestry.

Actually there are a lot of similar regions throughout the tropics. In Central America, probably half the western coast has those conditions. Species movement around the tropical world has been going on for centuries. The Monkeypod in Hawaii, for example, is a Central American native we call Cenizaro. We also have wide plantings of Tamarind (Tamarindo) which is an Asian native.

Usually there are specific reasons for this happening. In the case of Cenizaro, it was taken to Hawaii because it is such a beautiful ornamental. We brought in Tamarind because of it's delicious fruit.

No one that I know of has brought Koa to our region - then again, we already have more beautiful tropical hardwoods than probably any place on earth. There have been, however, two notable movements of trees for the purpose of timber.

Teak has recently come to Central America - it is a dense wood with a much faster growth rate than our natives, and has been widely planted on plantations. It is such a recent development (1980s) that there are still no fully mature trees, but evidence so far is that the quality is equal to Asian growth.

The other planting was much earlier. Santo Domingo Mahogany (Swietenia Mahogoni) is that beautiful dense mahogany - characteristics are almost between a Mahogany and a Rosewood. It was the first mahogany exported from the new world. It has been thought by many to be almost extinct. The last big native stands were cut by the Cubans and sent to the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

What most don't realize is that there is still a lot of it around. The Dutch, in their colonial days transported it from their Caribbean colonies to Indonsesia. There are huge stands of it there, where the government prohibits it's export in anything but finished goods.

I have seen the Caribbean material in antique furniture and a few old boards, and the Indonesian wood in newly built furniture exports. While those surviving antiques had better selected boards than a lot of what comes out of Indonesia now, to me, it appears that the overall quality of the Asian wood is just as good as the Caribbean.

To sum up, Koa could be grown in a lot of places in the tropics. Quality would likely vary as it would in Hawaii, with some sites being more favorable than others.

The End
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Of course, my reference was to the US Mainland... not the tropics, but, yes, you are right and along the Pacific Rim, there are plenty of places with vocanic soil enough for Koa to take hold.
 
For those of you wanting to see koa trees in all their glory, here's a little tour of a koa forest...

Does anyone have any info about someone on the big island who is supposedly growing koa from genetically curly stock??
I remember reading about it years ago....
Love to hear about it if "yes"...
 
Im not sure about the "curly", but I think it also applies to it. With my Gibson Les Pauls, the desireable finish are the flame and quilt tops, and as beautiful finish those make, the flame, quilt, & curly patterns are actually natually formed by deseise in the wood that causes that effect. But, sure makes awfully pretty finishes.
 
Pippin said:
Of course, my reference was to the US Mainland... not the tropics, but, yes, you are right and along the Pacific Rim, there are plenty of places with vocanic soil enough for Koa to take hold.
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It's just not the soil conditions, geography, and proper climate, koa also needs a certain amount of elevation to do well. On the Big Island it will not survive below a few hundred feet and some of the best stuff is growing at elevations of 4000 to 6000 feet.
 
There is Philippines Koa - Koa planted in the Philippines from Hawaii. Just grown under different climatic conditions. Very clear, clean and balanced. Very limited supplies.
Hawaiian Koa is Slightly more focused and crisp than Philippines koa. A truly beautiful wood.
This what a read on the side of NC guitars
 
Moore Bettah Ukuleles said:
It's just not the soil conditions, geography, and proper climate, koa also needs a certain amount of elevation to do well. On the Big Island it will not survive below a few hundred feet and some of the best stuff is growing at elevations of 4000 to 6000 feet.
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Thanks for the addition, Chuck. I didn't know about the elevation. I wonder if it has to do with too much wetness in the soil at low elevation.
 
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