Global interest in origins of commercial macadamias

Global interest in the wild relatives of commercial crops received a boost this week with the news that a majority of macadamia orchards throughout the world are derived from just a few wild trees.

Dr Craig Hardner, pictured with the world’s oldest living cultivated macadamia tree, planted in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens in 1858. Photo: UQ

In a paper published in Frontiers in Plant Science (21 March 2019), a team led by Cathy Nock at Southern Cross University and Craig Hardener at the University of Queensland studied the structure of the chloroplast genome from the Hawaiian macadamia industry and mapped it back to trees in the wild.

The Macadamia Conservation Trust protects wild macadamias as integral components of complex sub-tropical forest ecosystems, but support for their protection is enhanced when people understand the additional value they hold for the future of the global macadamia nut industry.

This story was also picked up by The Guardian!