Ethan Romanchak

Native Nursery, LLC

Kula, Maui Hawaii

Since 2003, Ethan Romanchak has owned and operated Native Nursery, LLC in Kula, Maui Hawaii, a wholesale plant nursery which specializes in plants for forestry and restoration. They also recently started providing fruit trees, including citrus and avocado. Romanchak was born and raised on the island of Maui, and has received an M.S. in Horticulture from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a B.A. from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He lives at 3,000-foot elevation on the leeward slope of Haleakalā with his wife and two sons. He is a board member for the Olinda/Kula Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) as well as a board member for the Maui County Farm Bureau. He is also affiliated with the Olinda/Kula SWCD.

Although his business is primarily a container plant nursery, they also manage 20 acres which includes orchards for budwood, native plant species for seeds and cuttings, and pastureland with sheep.

Some of the practices they utilize include mulching, no-till, and precision irrigation to improve soil health. They mulch with woodchips and the straw from a native high carbon grass to avoid bare soil. Keeping their soil covered is just one way they work to eliminate any runoff or nutrient discharge off site or into the water table. Additionally, they use gravel, weedmat, native plantings and the dominant pasture grass in their area which is Buffel grass. Through grading and drainage over the entire property, Romanchak is also minimizing runoff during large rain events. The nursery also implements integrated pest and weed management.

Preventing runoff from their property is one of their main concerns. Their specific micro-climate has a long dry season that sometimes abruptly ends with large and extreme rainfall events. Romanchak says they see too much topsoil erosion from adjacent lands that are plagued with a deer overpopulation problem that leaves no cover by the end of the dry season.

Posted April 2023