Breadfruit: Growing Guide for Kauaʻi

Overview

Breadfruit is one of the most productive food trees on Earth. A single healthy tree can bear well over a hundred starchy fruits a year, each weighing roughly 2–4 pounds, which can be steamed, baked, roasted, fried, or mashed much like potato. The fruit is rich in complex carbohydrates and fiber and is naturally gluten-free.

In a food forest, breadfruit is the long-term centerpiece. Everything else in a young guild protects and feeds it while it grows, and once it matures it shades the ground, drops leaves that build soil, and produces food for decades.

History

Breadfruit was domesticated in the western Pacific and is now grown throughout the tropics. The fruit is a staple food, and the tree also gives wood, latex used as a glue and caulking, and large leaves for wrapping.

Growing on Kauaʻi

Site: Give it your best spot: full sun, deep soil, and room to spread. Plan for a canopy at least 25–30 ft across even if you prune it.
Drainage: Breadfruit grows across a wide rainfall range, but its roots rot in waterlogged soil. On wet or heavy ground, plant on a low, wide mound.
Wind: Young trees need shelter from strong trade winds. Banana and pigeon pea on the windward side work well while it establishes.
Soil: Many Hawaiʻi soils are low in calcium and other nutrients. Heavy mulch and compost under the canopy out to the drip line, renewed once or twice a year, go a long way.

Planting and propagation

Breadfruit is seedless, so new trees are grown from root shoots (suckers that sprout from surface roots), root cuttings, air layers, or tissue culture. Most home growers buy a young tree from a local nursery, a breadfruit festival tree sale, or a grower with healthy trees.

Plant at the start of the rainy season if you can, so rain helps it settle in.
Dig a wide, shallow hole, set the tree at the same depth it grew in the pot, and water deeply.
Mulch a wide ring, keeping mulch a few inches from the trunk, and stake loosely if it’s windy.

Care and maintenance

Water regularly for the first year, especially in dry spells.
Prune to keep it harvestable. Start shaping at 2–3 years. Many growers keep the canopy at about 15–18 ft by reducing it back to the same height each year after fruiting. Avoid topping, which causes weak regrowth.
Keep it clean: pick up fallen fruit and dead branches. Rotting fruit spreads fungal diseases and draws fruit flies.
For large trees near houses or power lines, hire a certified arborist.

Role in the guild

Breadfruit is the anchor of the starter guild. Around it: pigeon pea for nitrogen and mulch, banana on the windward side for shelter, papaya for fast fruit, and sweet potato covering the ground. As the canopy closes over the years, shade-loving greens like katuk and Okinawa spinach take over beneath it.

Harvest

In Hawaiʻi the main season usually runs from mid-summer into fall, with some fruit at other times. Fruit is mature when the skin turns from bright green to yellow-green, the bumps smooth out, small cracks or dried sap appear on the surface, and the stem lightens. Harvest at least weekly in season.

All parts of the tree contain sticky white latex. Cut the stem close to the fruit and rest the fruit stem-end down for about an hour to let the sap drain. Mature fruit softens within 1–3 days at room temperature; cooked, cooled breadfruit freezes well.

Uses

Food: steamed, baked, roasted, fried, or mashed when mature; soft ripe fruit is sweet and used in desserts.
Soil: the large leaves make excellent mulch.
Shade and habitat: a mature canopy cools the ground and shelters understory plants.
Traditional materials: the latex, wood, and inner bark have long been used in the Pacific for crafts, boat-building, and more.

Problems to watch

Root and fruit rots (such as Phytophthora) in wet, poorly drained soils. Good drainage and sanitation prevent most problems.
Fruit flies on overripe and fallen fruit.
Rats, slugs, and snails on fruit near the ground.
Wind damage to tall, unpruned trees.

Learn more

General guidance for Kauaʻi; conditions vary by site. Check any new plant at plantpono.org before planting.