Quandong fruit growing trend takes off in Flinders Ranges

A growing interest in bush foods and opportunities for harvesting produce was evident with hundreds of people attending workshops and presentations at Quorn's Kurti Festival.

The festival by The Quorn Community Landcare Group supported by the SA Arid Lands Landscape Board and Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, with funding from the federal government's Future Drought Fund to include the speakers over the two-day festival was reviving grower interest at a local and state level.

The South Australian Native Foods Association held a dinner for its members as part of the event, with the festival providing a renewed energy for the industry.

Well-known author and native food expert Neville Bonney was a draw card and spoke about bush foods and shared valuable advice on what to consider before starting a commercial operation.

Mr Bonney said there was renewed interest in bush foods and international demand would be stronger with a consistent supply.

He said his best tip for growing a good crop of quandongs was to create healthy biodiversity around the crops - remembering that this is a species pollinated by ants and insects, rather than birds.

"Quandongs don't need maintenance, but they do need a clean floor," he said.

"Whatever you do, don't let the fruit rot on the ground."

Mr Bonney joined Ian Powell, Quorn, to lead a guided tour of a local Kurti orchard and the pair shared industry knowledge of growing and maintaining a productive bush food plantation.

Mr Powell manages a 300 tree orchard, established by his father Brian in the 1960s.

Following in his father's footsteps, he has tried many techniques to graft the quandong and said his best advice was "practice and keep practicing, but don't get too confident".

He said his best result on a small group of plants was 70 per cent.

"However, using the same process on a group of 100 plants, only six worked," he said.

"Planting from seed is also complicated, with the ambient temperature so important."

He said 18 degrees was the ideal temperature.

"If its 22C or 15C, in two months you will still have a bucket of seeds," he said.

Mr Powell said once the seeds have shoots "run it as dry as you dare - too much water and it rots - too little and it dies."

On the upside, he said once you had a start with the tree, the process becomes so much easier.

"I'm now gaining trees at a rate of knots," he said.

This year he collected 150 kilograms of fruit, weighed with the stone out - the equivalent of 900kg with the stone in.

The quandong is sold fresh, dried and frozen and if it is kept in the right conditions, the dried fruit will last for years, however growers get a better price, about $40/kg for frozen fruit.

Mr Powell said the quandong was a very nutritious food because it has an exceptionally high soluble vitamin content - especially the vitamin C.

"But it also has very potent therapeutic properties like the santalbic acid - the genus is santalum and it's named after the scent of santalbic acid that's in the kernel.

"And that happens to be extremely effective against Staphylococcus aureus.

"So the traditional use was when Aboriginal people would be doing ornamental scarring so once they had done the wounding, they'd chew up and make a paste out of the seed because it's rich, santalbic acid - it would stop infections."

He said about 25 to 30 people attended his talk who were keen to grow quandong with one person from Hawker looking to get 1000 plants in the ground.

"By about the middle of November the whole orchard will smell like the inside of a honey drum - it's sickly sweet," he said.

"That's the flowering time and if the trees are well watered and well fed that's when they set.

"By February, we've got little match head size quandongs sitting all over the trees.

"Through the winter they just slowly develop until we are harvesting bright red quandongs in the middle of September."

Wattle seed grower Angus Jones also spoke about the growing opportunities for bush food products at a national and international level, with the industry expected to be worth an estimated $40m by 2025, up from $21m in 2019/2020.

There were 13 priority species that were highly sought which includes quandong, muntries, mountain pepper, lemon myrtle and bush tomatoes.

Mr Jones said there are many benefits to growing and harvesting native species which include the plants being drought tolerant and easy to maintain and have the benefits of providing windbreaks and shade and shelter for livestock, improving soil health and have a relatively low cost of establishment compared with non-native food crops such as citrus.

The bush foods can be used in a range of items including in baked goods, cosmetics, teas, and also sold as whole foods.

Other popular workshops included composting and worm farming, native bees, on-farm bush production, water wise gardening, sandalwood propagation and Nukunu cultural knowledge.

Organic and sustainably harvested kangaroo products were showcased across the weekend, with 98kg of locally processed meat products provided by the Kangaroo Management Collective Pilot, a Kangaroo Partnership Project funded pilot that brought together Gawler Ranges land managers to raise awareness of the product.