Growing Murnong from seed

What is Murnong? Murnong (Microseris lanceolata), also known as a yam daisy, is an Australian native plant. I first was introduced to it during a workshop on growing edible native plants run by Steven Hoepfner (Wagtail Urban Farm) at the Adelaide Sustainability Centre. Pretty soon afterwards I found out more about Murnong and how First Nations people cultivated it, from a lecture given by Bruce Pascoe, which in turn led me to read his now well-known book “Dark emu, black seeds: agriculture or accident?”. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it for anyone who would like to learn about Australian history, particularly about the many ways First Nations people across Australia employed agriculture and aquaculture in the pre-colonisation period.

My first experiments of growing Murnong. For anyone following along who might also be trying to grow Murnong, my notes below are based on my first experience of trying to grow Murnong from seeds I collected from a pot of Murnong that I purchased from a local nursery. I am currently living in Footscray, Melbourne’s inner west, on lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong peoples. From Bruce Pascoe’s book, I believe Murnong used to be found widely across Victoria, including in this area.

I originally bought a small pot of Murnong from Poynton’s nursery (probably sometime in late 2021 or early 2022), and soon after transplanted it to a bigger pot. When I transplanted it to the larger pot, I separated out some of the pale cream coloured tubers so they had a bit more space. The tubers looked bit like parsnips to me but more like the size of a child’s finger. They have grown well since transplanting, in a semi shaded spot in the garden, and between January and end of March this year the plants have been flowering and producing fluffy seed heads that look similar to dandelions.

I read online that growing murnong from seed may not be as successful as growing from tubers, but I figured why not give it a go? So I carefully cut off most of the seed heads, one by one, as they appeared, and stored them in a glass jar in the shed. By the end of March I had a full jar of fluffy seeds.

Results so far….At the end of March (28/03/2023) I decided to start my first experiment of growing Murnong from seed. I set up some seedling trays with a mix of potting mix and garden soil, and planted approx. 1-3 seeds per square, just under the surface of the dirt and watered them. There are 40 squares in total. I had no idea what the success rate of germination would be, although this article on the Landcare website suggested propagating by seed might not be super successful, so I tried not to get my hopes up.

By 11/04/2023 a handful of the seedling squares were starting to show signs of sprouts! By 17/04/2023, all 40 of my seedling squares have at least 1 Murnong shoot visible, and some have multiple shoots! So this is very exciting…a much greater germination success rate than I was expecting especially for my first attempt! I will keep you posted on how they develop!

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I still have most of the jar full of Murnong seeds so can try to grow more another time, or share some with other local friends who are interested in propagating edible native plants.