Author Topic: Bonyi season  (Read 2259 times)

BMc

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Bonyi season
« on: December 27, 2013, 05:06:25 AM »
Today I headed out to the farm after hearing the bears had started dropping from the trees. Our 60ft wee-un bunya nut tree has dropped 12 fruit so far and still has heaps up in the crown. They cluster in the crown of the tree like big ugly grapes and the corellas have a field day gnawing through the cones to try to get at the nuts. The size isn't exceptional this season due to some real dry patches, but the quantity should more than make up for it. We'll be eating tonnes of pesto and bonyi mash. Here's the early season haul.






Radoslav

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Re: Bonyi season
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2013, 05:32:18 AM »
Sadly, it looks like this beautiful conifer (Araucaria bidwillii) is not enough hardy to my zone 6.  :(

Mike T

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Re: Bonyi season
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2013, 05:33:29 AM »
There is only a few patches of wild trees up here but the trees are huge. Lots of trees have been planted on the Atherton Tablelands and red tailed and sulphur crested cockatoos give cones a work over. Some trees must be 40m.

Luisport

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Ethan

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Re: Bonyi season
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2013, 05:41:29 PM »
Wow, that is a tiny wheelbarrow or those things are monsters!

BMc

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Re: Bonyi season
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2013, 09:24:48 PM »
It's a medium sized wheel barrow. I've had cones up to 15kgs, but these wouldn't be that big.

BMc

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Re: Bonyi season
« Reply #6 on: December 27, 2013, 09:36:44 PM »
Measuring in at 5kgs each roughly uniform. From what I've seen most cones this season are fairly small compared to the big ones a few years back. But the really big trees haven't started dropping cones yet, and they are the ones with really big fruit.

DurianLover

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Re: Bonyi season
« Reply #7 on: December 28, 2013, 06:11:26 AM »
There is only a few patches of wild trees up here but the trees are huge. Lots of trees have been planted on the Atherton Tablelands and red tailed and sulphur crested cockatoos give cones a work over. Some trees must be 40m.

Do they ever fruit in Cairns? I'm getting impression that this is more like subtropical species.

Mike T

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Re: Bonyi season
« Reply #8 on: December 28, 2013, 07:23:51 AM »
No DL only above about 700m here and the wild ones are at 1000m altitude. They are subtropical and can grow in quite cool places like Sydney.

BMc

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Re: Bonyi season
« Reply #9 on: December 28, 2013, 07:44:57 AM »
The biggest stands of them are in the mountains west of Toowoomba, where it regularly frosts, gets occasional snowfall and goes to -5 pretty often and has seen -9c with no damage to trees. I've heard of fruiting trees in Melbourne. They also grow and fruit brilliantly in areas that have never seen anything under 2c. But never heard of them fruiting in the lowland tropics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunya_Mountains