Laying the groundwork: Scaling seed supply for commercial native rice cultivation

Challenge

The journey toward commercialising Australian native rice began with a fundamental hurdle: the insufficient availability of viable seed stock. Harvesting from the wild – often done by hand in remote, crocodile-inhabited wetlands – is not only hazardous but also yields minimal and inconsistent seed volumes. Without a scalable and reliable source of seed, it would be impossible to establish the agronomic trials necessary for future commercial cultivation. This constraint posed a significant barrier to transitioning native rice from a foraged product to a cultivated, market-ready crop.

Solution

To overcome this limitation, researchers from Charles Darwin University (CDU) and the Northern Territory Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade (NTDITT) implemented a controlled seed bulking program. This initiative involved growing native rice in shade houses at CDU’s Casuarina Campus and the Coastal Plains Research Station using accessions of Oryza australiensis, Oryza meridionalis, and Oryza rufipogon. Seeds from both gene bank sources and field collections were sown in pots under varied conditions to test their response to soil types and irrigation methods. The trials not only aimed to multiply seed stocks but also provided an early opportunity to assess performance across different environments.

Impact

The bulking trials yielded substantial volumes of seed, enabling a shift from dependency on limited wild harvests to a more sustainable, cultivation-based approach. For example, thousands of seeds were harvested from each species, IE over 4600 seeds from O. rufipogon grown at CDU. This success created the foundation for future experimental trials and provided the material needed for germination testing, milling, and nutritional analysis. Moreover, these trials allowed researchers to begin formulating best-practice cultivation protocols tailored to native rice species.

Prospects

The successful bulking of native rice seeds represents a pivotal step toward establishing a reliable production system. These outcomes support the broader goal of enabling Indigenous-led enterprises to cultivate native rice commercially. With an expanded and dependable seed supply, partners such as Olive Vale Pastoral Pty Ltd can initiate larger-scale field trials. Ultimately, this lays the groundwork for a new value chain in which native rice is not only sustainably produced but also marketed as a culturally significant, gourmet food product with strong domestic and export potential.

Prospects