{"id":864803,"date":"2026-08-22T21:38:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T21:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864803\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T21:38:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T21:38:22","slug":"could-the-macadamias-hidden-in-queenslands-rainforests-be-the-key-to-saving-the-worlds-finest-nut-australian-food-and-drink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/864803\/","title":{"rendered":"Could the macadamias hidden in Queensland\u2019s rainforests be the key to saving \u2018the world\u2019s finest nut\u2019? | Australian food and drink"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are bouncing over a rough, steep gravel road on the hunt for macadamia trees in the wild. Here in the tangled rainforest at Mary\u2019s Creek in Queensland<\/a> is the macadamia\u2019s main ancestral home.<\/p>\n

Ian McConachie has always been partial to a macadamia nut. As a boy in Brisbane<\/a> in the 1940s he used to climb fences to steal them from people\u2019s backyards. \u201cWe\u2019d put them in a little hole in the concrete under the house and hit them with a hammer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now 90, he has spent much of his life devoted to the nut, including developing a tree that has raised $2m in royalties for the Macadamia Conservation Trust, which seeks to preserve this scrappy rainforest plant.<\/p>\n

Ian McConachie is a pioneer of the commercialisation of macadamia nuts. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Today macadamias are a $2bn global industry, grown in industrial quantities in subtropical climates in Hawaii, the Americas, Africa and Asia. But there was a time when Aboriginal people traded them for rum and tobacco with the white settlers here on this country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the world\u2019s finest nut,\u201d McConachie says. \u201cIt is an Australian icon and our only native plant that has become a commercial food.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of kilometres from here lives Macadamia integrifolia, which genetic testing has shown is the genesis tree of 70% of macadamia trees grown commercially around the world.<\/p>\n

There are three other species: M. tetraphylla is also grown commercially, while M. ternifolia and M. jansenii are almost inedible, wild and rare.<\/p>\n

Macadamias have been cultivated commercially since the 1920s, starting in Hawaii. Australia didn\u2019t start commercial production until the 1960s. Only two to three generations out of the wild is \u201cterribly young in the world of horticulture\u201d, McConachie says. \u201cSo we simply don\u2019t know what the potential of the wild macadamia tree is.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduating from industrial chemistry and business management with a focus on food, McConachie spent 35 years in businesses involving macadamia nuts. Later, he developed 20 macadamia orchards in Gympie and Bundaberg for investor-owners. Australia was behind Hawaii in growing commercial crops, with the first domestic processing plant only opening in 1954.<\/p>\n

McConachie with his published book on macadamias. He has spent decades walking the remnant rainforests to find and document wild macadamias in situ. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Growers were given a tax deduction to help establish a local industry, McConachie says. This also attracted organised crime, seeking to launder money. \u201cI\u2019ve got wonderful stories which can never be printed. A guy working for us was charged with murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

All four macadamia species are native to a tiny patch of Australian subtropical rainforest in south-east Queensland and northern NSW. \u201cWhich is pretty much where everyone wants to live,\u201d says Denise Bond, executive director of Wild Macadamia Conservation. \u201cThey [the trees] like expensive real estate, which makes them incredibly endangered because we\u2019ve got so little rainforest left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wild trees may hold the key to the next generation of climate- and disease-resilient nuts. McConachie says for commercial macadamia farming, \u201cone of the very few things Australia has got going for it is the wild trees and their genetic potential\u201d.<\/p>\n

Traditional owner Russell Bennet says the wild macadamia trees\u2019 modest appearance \u2018is their problem \u2013 they get dozed over\u2019. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

But more than 80% of the habitat that these trees evolved in over 120m years is reduced to remnant now.<\/p>\n

One of the macadamia species, M. jansenii, is seriously endangered, so rare \u201ca bushfire could totally wipe them out\u201d, McConachie says. Their locations are kept secret to protect them. While the nuts are too bitter to eat, \u201cit could be a major tool in terms of climate change because it is so hardy\u201d. The other three species are listed as threatened or vulnerable.<\/p>\n

McConachie has spent decades walking the remnant rainforests not far from where he lives, to find and document wild macadamias in situ. In August, he and fellow macadamia conservationist Russell Bennet take me on one of their hunts.<\/p>\n

Bennet, a Kabi Kabi man, custodian and elder, who is driving, is known for his ability to spot them. \u201cIt\u2019s some genetic ability handed down through the ancestors, I reckon,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

First Nations Australians, though, have received vanishingly little financial benefit from the nut\u2019s global popularity.<\/p>\n

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When he finds a new undocumented tree, Bennet says, \u201cit\u2019s almost like finding gold. You can go through a lot of rainforest and not see one.\u201d Except in September, when they flower and put on a show. The rest of the year, their dark leaves retreat into the rainforest, easily overlooked.<\/p>\n

M. ternifolia, commonly known as the gympie nut, in bloom. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re quite cryptic,\u201d says Bond, with a couple of trees scattered here and there.<\/p>\n

Their modesty, says Bennet, \u201cis their problem \u2013 they get dozed over\u201d.<\/p>\n

McConachie is \u201cshocked\u201d by the degradation of the trees we find. An invasive creeper called cat\u2019s claw has been smothering them; some have been smashed by storms.<\/p>\n

We come to a sudden halt at a \u201cKeep Out\u201d sign. Behind it is logging machinery. The hills are denuded, the small macadamia trees struggling in the dust. \u201cThe rainforest is tired,\u201d McConachie says. \u201cWhether the remaining trees are still there is unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018One of the goals in the future will be to find out if we can store the genetics of the wild macadamias, so that they\u2019re available for breeding for conservation,\u2019 McConachie says. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Cultivated trees have significantly less genetic diversity than their wild counterparts, making those that remain \u201ca genetic bank,\u201d says Bond. \u201cIf anything were to happen, like a root rot fungus go through the commercial population, or any sort of pest or disease that commercial nuts can\u2019t survive, if all the wild trees are gone you can\u2019t go back and say, lets breed some resistance into the crop.\u201d<\/p>\n

They should be safe in the state forests of Mary\u2019s Creek, Amamoor and Imbil, the largest continuous area of habitat \u2013 \u201cbut they\u2019re not,\u201d says McConachie.<\/p>\n

At his home, McConachie has handwritten descriptions of the four different types of macadamia. Photograph: Krystle Wright\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can conserve DNA, but we can\u2019t regenerate it. So one of the goals in the future will be to find out if we can store the genetics of the wild macadamias, so that they\u2019re available for breeding for conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1981, McConachie and his wife, Jan, bought a rundown dairy farm near Wolvi. He flirted with other trees, mangoes, lychees, stone fruit, but quickly came back to his great love. After an extensive selection trial, he found a particularly hardy and accommodating tree, named it MCTI and secured planter breeding rights. \u201cIt has sold about a million and a half trees,\u201d he says, \u201cand raised about $2m in royalties.\u201d All of that has been gifted to Wild Macadamia Conservation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re probably all a bit eccentric,\u201d he says of the group, \u201cbut we\u2019re passionate about the need to conserve the wild genetics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We are bouncing over a rough, steep gravel road on the hunt for macadamia trees in the wild.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-864803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}