Richard Sears steadies himself on a high limb and extends a fruit-picker up over his head. The breadfruit tree, surrounded by small shrubs, sways slightly with his weight.

"Where's that ripe one?" Sears yells to ethnobotanist Liloa Dunn, who is scrutinizing the 30-foot tree from a few feet back in a large expanse of grass at Lyon Arboretum.

"Right in front of you," Dunn shouts back.

The tree shivers as Sears moves toward a big, fat breadfruit. He snags it in the picker and slowly reels it in. "Nice," Sears says, as he drops the fruit to Dunn, who catches it like a football, cradling it in both hands.

The staggered, yearlong harvest at the nearly century-old Manoa Valley arboretum, where there are hundreds of mature fruit trees and vegetable plants, is rewarding — but it is also time-consuming and difficult. And with only a few employees and a handful of volunteers, the arboretum is forced to allow most of its produce to go unpicked.

A program with the Hawaii Foodbank launched this year is trying to prevent the waste, while getting a variety of fresh produce to people who need it most.

"You hate to see food that could be on somebody's plate fall to the ground," said Jill Laughlin, education and volunteer program coordinator at Lyon Arboretum, who created the program, called hanai'ai, this spring after touring the food bank's renovated, larger facilities, which now boast better refrigeration for perishables and a large freezer.

As part of the arboretum initiative, the food bank will pick up the produce and distribute it to needy communities, from Kalihi to Wai'anae. Laughlin is looking for volunteers who can harvest fruits and vegetables, from mangoes and breadfruit to taro and sweet potato.

The program was quietly launched in April, and has three people signed on so far.

No fruits have been shipped over to the food bank yet because employees are still mapping the 200-acre arboretum's plants and pinpointing when produce ripens and who can pick it.

Laughlin said volunteers would go on a list and be contacted when fruits ripen.

The program comes as the supply of donated fruits and vegetables is noticeably lower than in previous years thanks to the months-long spate of drenching rainstorms in the spring.

"Our produce has been substantially less than we were expecting," said Polly Kauahi, director of development at the Hawaii Foodbank. "This will help offset that dip."

The food bank gets much of its produce from farmers who have fruits and vegetables to spare. Supermarkets are also donating less because of the decrease in supply. Also, because donations from supermarkets have often sat on shelves, produce cannot be stored for long and some is often already rotten.

The partnership with the arboretum is the first of its kind, and is expected to provide a source of fresher, varied produce for the food bank. "The hope is that these particular fruits will not be on their second life," Kauahi said. "This would be so fresh for us."

The food bank is always looking for fresh produce to supplement its steadier supply of canned fruits and vegetables. Kauahi said when donations are low, the nonprofit has to dip into its operating budget to buy perishable food. On average, the food bank serves some 131,000 people annually in the Islands through 250 agencies.

On a recent sunny afternoon, Laughlin walked the arboretum with Dunn and Sears, an education specialist, pointing out trees with fruit and a large patch of sweet potato plants and dry taro. Sears had his fruit-picker in hand.

"We're trying to get fruits that are culturally significant, too," Laughlin said, pointing out Hawaiian staples like breadfruit and taro, as well as lychee and guava, grow plentifully at the arboretum. Indeed, the arboretum has more than 5,000 species of plants, a good chunk of which produce edible fruits and are native to the Pacific.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.