Bunya Nuts - Shelter needed

The sky is falling the sky is falling.

Well if you have a bunya nut tree you will understand what this means. If your not aware of the tree then each cone/seedpod weighs in at 4kg each and they come down with an almighty thud from 20 to 30 meters up capable of killing livestock. The issues is increased that when they drop they will come down in a cluster of 4 or 5 together at the same time and anything under the tree has a fair chance of being hit.

There is some reprieve however as they don't grow nuts every year and need a really wet spring to fruit. The tree on my farm has missed the last 3 years but with the heavy spring rain we had in September and November the tree is covered in the nuts.  In the paddock where the tree is, normally it is the preferred shade tree for the miniature horses, alpacas and cattle as the have their turns in the paddock.  This year, now I understand the tree and have recovered the paddock to be totally usable I have had to build an alternative shelter in the paddock and fence off the tree until all the nuts have fallen. A solar powered electric fence should be on every small farmers shopping list and indeed should be one of the first things purchased. The nuts don't take long to fall once they start falling however its trying to understand when they are going to fall that is really difficult so just fencing the area off for the duration is best. For those that want to be a little more exact the nuts on my tree began falling January 5th and I'm guessing will be finished by the end of January  and this mature tree will have dropped close to 100 nuts so thats about 400 kgs that will have fallen in weight.

 It's actually confusing the first time you experience the sound of them falling. I had only just purchased the property when I first came across the bunya nut tree. I hadn't't got to clearing that paddock yet and was still working my way through the bush to get there when I first started hearing the thuds. At first i though trees were falling down and ran out of the bush I was in then looked back and saw nothing happening.  I went back to work and a day latter heard it again and though something must have happened to a neighbour's cattle or some had a car crash. I started searching around and had no idea to look up into the trees for the answer. It wasn't to weeks later I mentioned the sounds to another neighbour and he was all excited knowing exactly what is was as his wife cooked the nuts and had gathered them before. We walked over tougher and he show me the bug pods on the ground and showed me where they came from.


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