Tropical Start for 2017

So the best way to start the new year is to put the past year behind you and get motivated for the season ahead.  And a week in Hawaii is the best way to accomplish that.  In early January a group of top AgroLiquid Retail Partners, some growers and some AgroLiquid employees descended on the island of Kauai at the Kauai Beach Resort for some meetings, activities and plenty of time to see the sights. 

The weather was perfect and a beautiful sunrise over the ocean got every day off to a great start.

 There was a boat ride where plenty of dolphins and whales were seen.

We visited AgroLiquid customer Kauai Coffee to learn about the various stages of coffee growth throughout the year. 

 We had a banquet that was preceded by a hula dance show.

There was a banquet featuring a variety of delicious food with live Hawaiian music, recognition of sales accomplishments, motivational talk by our CEO Troy Bancroft, and then more live (and lively) music into the night.

Kauai is home to several seed companies that conduct research year-round in the tropical conditions. We had a visit to Dow AgroSciences where they demonstrated some of their inbred corn research that is used to develop hybids with new characteristics.

Always enjoy the opportunity to eat unusual foods.  Anyone know what this is?  It looks like a big hairy strawberry.  It's a rambutan, which comes from a tree of the same name.  You bite into it to peel off the outside.  Then there is that white grape-looking thing in the middle that you eat.  Not bad, but would rather just eat a regular grape.

We went for a night shoot of sporting clays at one of our favorite places, Kauai Eco-Clays, run by one of our favorite people, Ben Ellsworth.  It was fun with a capital F.

We climbed a mountain, the challenging Sleeping Giant.  Elevation 1281 feet above sea level, and you can see the sea below.

There are several luaus on the island that groups of people attended.  This was the Smith's Tropical Garden luau, and here they are lifting the pig out of the coals where it has been cooking all day. Kalua pork, it falls off the bone.

Most of the time you can do what you want.  I like to go to the beach down on the Southside at Poipu.

And about eleven hours after sunrise, there is sunset.  Good thing because after a day of fun in the sun, you're tired!

Now after a week of that, hopefully everyone leaves motivated to sell fertilizer so they can come back next year.  Or to go for your first time.  Especially in such challenging times like now.  I will expand on some of the above activities in upcoming Land of Liquid blog posts.  Until then: Aloha.