Oscar Jones is a PhD student under the restoration theme of the ARC Training Centre for Healing Country. His project focuses on investigating ways to enhance seed use and scale up restoration outcomes in Southwest Western Australia, and consists of projects based in the Perth metropolitan area and the Great Southern region.
In collaboration with industry partners Greening Australia, Gondwana Link, Bush Heritage Australia, Wilga Farming Australia, and Nowanup, his work aims to design and assess the feasibility of a novel direct seeding approach by evaluating the effectiveness of using agricultural machinery to scale up ecological restoration. In addition, this work is supported by further research aiming to better understand the optimal sowing and monitoring periods based on an evaluation of seed traits and how different sowing times affect seedling survival and, more broadly, vegetation composition. In important agricultural production areas such as the Wheatbelt, developing a research agenda that aims to integrate ecological restoration with other land uses and support farmers, restoration practitioners, and Indigenous organisations is crucial to promote long-term success.
Curtin University staff and Nowanup Caretakers
(Rangers) preparing the germination trial at
Ediegarrup Nature Reserve in early June, 2025
Since starting his PhD in August 2024, Oscar and the team, supported by the Lotterywest-funded Native Seed Technology and Innovation Hub, have begun the first year of on-ground trials at Ediegarrup Reserve, 140km north-east of Albany. This involved exploring the germination and emergence behaviour of key species, sowing seed mixes used on site every two weeks across four months for the timing experiment, plus running the first proof-of-concept agricultural machinery trials across two of the most common soil types found on site.
Whilst the project is in its early stages, it would not have been possible without the support of all of the stakeholders involved. We look forward to seeing this project shape up over the next few years as Oscar completes his PhD. Oscar will be presenting on this work at this year’s Ecological Society of Australia conference in Adelaide, this November. If you would like to contact Oscar about this project further, reach out at Oscar.jones@postgrad.curtin.edu.au.
A pelleted seed mix to be sown in the
Moort (Eucalyptus platypus on clay)
vegetation community using a large
agricultural seeder
Healing Country acknowledges the generous support of our collaborators and industry partners (*). L-R: Greening Australia*, Gondwana Link*, Bush Heritage Australia, Nowanup, Wilga Farming Australia. This Centre receives funding from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (Project IC210100034).
