NGT Nursery News: A story about emu poo!
Cassie Hlava – Bushland Restoration Project Officer at DEWNR – very kindly presented me with a dry emu poo from Bangham and the volunteers and I sprang into action when we saw the amount of seed it contained. Dividing the scat in 4, trials began and by far the most successful germination experiment was the use of smoke water, although we are still waiting on scarification results (yes, we put it in the nursery fridge!).
Germination!
Hundreds of seeds have germinated, but it’s a bit early to tell what they all are, plus it will be interesting to see what appears with seeds that are slower to germinate. Depending on the results, plans for some of our target species using collected scats are on the cards for the future.
A number of studies have demonstrated the important role that emus play in the transportation and pre-treatment of native seed in different parts of Australia, so getting some locally relevant information together on this subject is very exciting for the NGT Community Nursery.
We’ll keep you posted.
Cheers,
Yvonne – NGT Community Nursery Officer
