Smoking Australian Natives.

Posted by Bill Richardson Jul 19, 2006

An interesting topic and no, we are not talking about nicotene or tobacco, nor Natives who smoke.

This "smoke" process has been a popular one for a few decades now and keen horticulturalists have been devising methods to make smoke water easily available to the general public.

I first came across this method in a South African Journal and at the time many growers were using bee smokers - the idea was to enclose your pots by some kind of cover and then pump the smoke in, over the pots.

Here is an excerpt from one of my latest discussions: "As for smoke water, many Australian plant seeds can lay dorment for years on the ground in the bush, and it takes a fire (and the smoke from the fire) to break the dormancy of the seeds.

A "smoke" method was developed years ago, firstly in South Africa, as many of their species react the same way to fire. The idea is to pot up the seeds and enclose them and light a fire and smoke the pots of seeds. This breaks the seed dormancy and encourages germination.

Kirstenbosch in South Africa then developed a small cardboard disc, infused with smoke which you include in the pot with your seeds As you watered, the smoke was taken into the soil mix to help the seeds break dormancy. I used these for a few years in some of my pots.

Eventually, Kings Park in Western Australia developed a smoked bottled water which does the same thing. You just water your seeds with this formula to help germination. I used it for a while but it was a very expensive product. Some of the reports I've read from South African Journals have shown good results using this method but I've not seen any Australian reports on it yet."

I've had some sucess with this method although I do not currently use this method for germination purposes. I'd be interested in hearing from other growers who have tried it?