Bunya Pines – growing from seed and eating

I recently was fortunate enough to be given a whole Bunya Pine cone from a friend who has a mature tree on his property. The kids and I stripped the cone down to approximately 80 good nuts.

We did some research and found some interesting information about these trees.

The advice for planting the seeds was to insert them into the soil point

y end down with the larger rounded end still visible at the surface of the soil. We have planted them in deep 5 litre planting bags, however they can be sown directly into the ground.

According to various forum posts the seeds will germinate fairly quickly, but will first produce a tap root. When the tap root gets to the required depth, or the bottom of the container it will produce a tuber. The plant will then stay in this state until the best conditions for growth are met.

This could be a couple of months or up to 18 months. I couldn’t find any details as to what constitutes best conditions for growth. So we now have 50 of these in our green house waiting for the best conditions for growth at which point hopefully they will send up shoots.

We also have eaten some of the nuts.

Preparation involved boiling the nut to soften the hard outer shell. The soft inner nut was then removed and fried. It tasted like a nutty potato. Apparently they are very nutritious.

Advice on growing Bunya Pines would be greatly appreciated.

UPDATE

So stoked to see my bunyas germinating. Looks like a crazy egg hatching.

About The Author

About The Author

John Clark

I am currently on long service leave which has extended into a 12 month mid career break. So not working at all for awhile. My days are spent lazying by the creek with Pina Colada's in hand. Correction my dreams are spent that way. My days are spent organising and taxiing my three children around (spent 10 years were the first time I would see them each day was at 7:30pm!!!) so this is a change for the better. Then housework, then yard work, then study. I have also recently taken to long rolls around on the floor with my two dogs.

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