Seeding Our Future Project 2024/25
Posted on 30 October, 2025 by Hadley Cole
Back in November 2024, Connecting Country kicked of the Seeding Our Future project funded through the 2024 Victorian Landcare Grants. The scope of the project wass to help protect and conserve locally rare and threatened plant species through a series of educational workshops that build knowledge and skills within our local community.
Indigenous seed security is a concern for many in the natural resource management sector. With increased fragmentation of landscapes and the changes in weather patterns and climate due to global heating, the future of many plant species is under threat. Grand scale restoration works are needed and programs such as the Victoria Governments Bushbank program require huge quantities of seed to meet restoration targets. Seeding Victoria are working with project partners Cassinia Environmental and the Natural Resources Conservation Trust to raise awareness of seed security and provide training and resources to aspiring seed collectors to increase seed supply and availability.
The Seeding Our Future project compliments the work Seeding Victoria and partners are undertaking to raise the importance of seed conservation. Considering this, for the first workshop we hosted in November 2024 we partnered with Seeding Victoria in a Seed Collection Workshop at the Botanical Gardens in Castlemaine. The workshop was sold out with keen participants coming along from as far away as Reservoir!
Dan Frost from Seeding Victoria talked us through the basics of seed collection including the equipment needed, permits required and the various collection processes for different indigenous plant species. After a morning in the classroom, we went for a walk through the Botanical gardens and up to the bush land reserve behind the gardens to explore which local plants are currently flowering, seeding or close to seeding and how you might approach collecting and storing their seed.
Dan talked us through the adapted seed collection techniques for various plant families including some grasses, daisies, acacias, eucalypts, bottle brushes, and cone producing plants.
November until late summer is some of the best times for seed collection in the local area, so for aspiring seed collectors this was the perfect time to build a knowledge base and learn about the permits required before getting out there to collect!
Participants reported that they thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. A big thank you to Dan and Robert from Seeding Victoria for sharing their deep knowledge of local seed. We hope to see the future of seed collecting secured and many of our local plant species conserved and protected.
Below photo shows Dan Frost from Seeding Victoria presenting on various collection techniques to a very engaged audience. All photos in this post by Carmen Bunting.
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