Coconuts and More by Romney Farm

About Dave Romney

Dave was educated in Great Britain. He has an honors degree in Agricultural Chemistry from Reading University, and did further agricultural studies at Oxford University and the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research, Aberdeen.

He was a member of the three-man team that carried out the 8,000 square-mile Land Use Survey of British Honduras (Belize) in 1953 – 1954. From 1955 – 1960, he was Agricultural Chemist for Belize, building and operating an analytical laboratory for soils and leaves, and carrying out field fertilizer and variety trials on maize, broom corn, sugar cane, citrus, yams, pineapples, coconuts and pasture grasses. In 1960 he was appointed Agronomist, Research Department, Coconut Industry Board, Jamaica and became Director in 1962. The Department did research into coconut varieties, breeding, fertilizers, rat control, herbicides, spacing, mulching, and copra quality. Varieties were introduced and hybrids made and tested for resistance to Lethal Yellowing (LY) disease. Scientists co-opted from U.S.A.I.D., F.A.O., British Aid and the University of West Indies studied the cause and possible cure of Lethal Yellowing. The Department cooperated with the University of London on vegetative reproduction of coconut. Some 6 million Jamaica Tall coconut palms killed by LY were replaced by ten million resistant Malayans and hybrids. An Advisory Division was initiated in 1962 to solve farmer’s problems and carry out field days and radio programs. A chemistry laboratory analyzed soils, leaves and copra.

From 1981 to 1988, he worked with the World Bank and German Foreign Aid as Coconut Agronomist in Tanzania, where he established and operated 400 acres of field trials at seven sites, studying plant nutrition, variety testing, weed control, spacing and intercropping of coconuts.

He has written and co-authored over 80 scientific papers, and performed consultancies in Rangiroa, Panama, Nicaragua, St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Vincent, Grenada, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Cuba, and the Philippines. He is a member of the South Florida Palm Society, the Tropical Fruit Growers of South Florida, and the Tropical Fruit and Vegetable Society of the Redland, and is author of “Growing Coconuts in South Florida”.

In 1988, Dave and his wife, Shirley, came from Africa and developed a 5-acre farm in S. Florida (Redland area). The land was in vegetables but they trenched it and planted a bottlebrush windbreak along the west side. They planted Malayan Dwarf coconuts with bananas interplanted. Later areas of longan, litchee, kumquat, canistel, naseberry, and monstera were planted. They then developed a plant nursery with coconut and other palms, bananas, unusual fruit trees and ornamentals. Although Dave is still available to give advice, in 1999 he handed over management of the farm and nursery to his daugther Carol Romney-Shim. Carol has accumulated a wide knowledge of coconuts and other tropical plants.