Landcare Illawarra Community Seedbank

The Landcare Illawarra Community Seedbank coordinates the collection, processing and storage of local provenance seed for vegetation rehabilitation projects in the Illawarra. 

The Seedbank's Project Officer is available to provide site specific technical advice and species identification to groups and individuals.

Field Days and training opportunities that demonstrate collection and processing of local native species seed are also held.  

Landcare Illawarra encourages all land owners/managers, local agencies, community groups and individuals to become involved and learn more about the collection of native seed for local revegetation projects.

The objectives of the Community Seedbank Project are to:
o Coordinate effective native vegetation seed collection, processing, storage and distribution;
o Provide training in seed collection, processing and storage;
o Promote genetic diversity as an aspect of local provenance seed collection;
o Provide advice on rehabilitation and vegetation management; and 
o Promote biodiversity conservation issues.

Seed All About It Fact Sheets
'Seed All About It' Fact Sheets for local Wattle and Eucalypt species have been produced to provide information on species identification, seed properties, timing your seed collection and seed processing.  

See Seed All About It Wattles and Seed All about it Eucalypts to download these Fact Sheets.  These are a great resource for collecting seed in our local area.

Training Events
The Landcare Illawarra Seedbank Officer coordinated two successful seed collection days in December 2007.

Hands on training was provided whilst collecting seed in the field and included:
o Identifying ripeness of seed;
o Selecting tools for the job; and
o How to go about collecting and processing the seed, recording necessary collection details and effectively storing the seed.

Future Projects that address the gentic diversity aspects of species' populations are currently being planned.  See Illawarra Woodland and Rainforest Project for a discussion on genetic diversity.

For Further information on training opportunities, technical advice or how to get involved in the Community Seedbank please contact the Seedbank Project Officer, Ricahard Scarborough 0438 988 387.

Update on seed collecting projects

Landcare Illawarra's work on the genetic diversity of plant species involves developing a long term focus on projects that include a greater number of genetically different individuals in plantings. Even species that are regionally common may have resticted populations in some vegetation remnants.

Planting seed orchards is an important method that can be used to increase the gene pool of species with otherwise unviable populations.  In order to establish seed orchards for different species their current population structure and distribution needs to be assessed. Species' future reproductive needs can then be addressed by introducing nursery stock from different sites in new plantings in order to increase the gene pool. Seed orchards look like regular Landcare plantings except that species are clumped to promote cross-pollination.

How you or your Landcare Group can help

o As a first step, a population assessment for species at your site can be conducted by counting the individuals of each species, or species you think may have low populations. Where there are distinct generations, size can be used as an approximation for age class, and field assessments should indicate the numbers in the founding parent population.

o As a second step, seed collections can be undertaken for target species ie. those that have low populations or that are at risk of not being able to cross-pollinate. The aim is to capture the genetic diversity of small populations, or even single individuals in extreme cases, and then produce planting stock for seed orchard projects.

o We are also looking for planting sites. A space for three trees for a species would help, but we can work up projects of any scale and for any number of species.

The role of the seedbank will be to act as a clearing house to coordinate seed collections by community members propagated by local nurseries as a source of tubestock for planting projects. Landcare Illawarra would like to encourage a wide variety of people to assist in seed collection to increase the seed collecting effort across the region and therefore improve the outcomes for the conservation of genetic diversity.

Discussions with contracting nurseries have been productive and various nurseries have expressed interest and commitment to the project. Seed collection contributions for the seedbank by members of the community will increase the range of species available as well as the level of genetic diversity for each species.

Further information is being collated, and a discussion paper with a target list of species is now available for viewing, See Illawarra Woodland and Rainforest Project.

As an initial seed collection list, we are targeting species with regionally dispersed distributions, where the closest individual of the same species may sometimes be beyond the means of the pollinator or wind to effect interbreeding. Woodland species are also in demand. The following are useful if you can collect them:

Kurrajong, Brachychiton populneum   
White Beech, Gmelina leichhardtii
Yellow Ash, Emmenospermum alphitonioides  
Celerywood, Polyscias elegans
Pink Tips, Callistemon salignus  
Rose Sheoak, Allocasuarina torulosa

There will be many more species to come as we review their populations. We will also indicate specific sites from which we'd like to collect.

For further information please contact the Seedbank Project Officer, Ricahard Scarborough on 0438 988 387.