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Marrinup Nursery
Alcoa's Marrinup Nursery provides seeds and plants for the rehabilitation of mined areas at the Huntly and Willowdale bauxite mines. The nursery’s main focus is on the bauxite mines but it also provides seeds and plants for rehabilitation of the residue rehabilitation areas at Alcoa’s three refineries. In addition the nursery carries out seed viability and germination testing, and grows greenstock of “recalcitrant” plant species for other mining companies.
Located five kilometres from Dwellingup, the nursery has three full time staff and employs up to 15 nursery assistants. The Marrinup nursery was established in 1980.
The nursery is a member of the Nursery Industry Accreditation Scheme ensuring its hygiene and management practices comply with industry standards for production of quality, disease-free plants.
Although Marrinup is not a retail nursery it does produce some plants for rural landowners and other groups including volunteer revegetation groups.
The nursery includes a tissue culture (or micro-propagation) laboratory solely for the purpose of restoring a high diversity of plant species in rehabilitated mined areas. No other mining company in the world has comparable facilities.
Marrinup nursery currently carries out work in four main areas:
- Purchasing, collecting, treating and supplying seed for mine rehabilitation
- Producing plants for rehabilitation, in particular recalcitrant* species
- Propagation research and development of plant species for mine rehabilitation
- Providing horticultural services to the rest of Alcoa's WA operations
Alcoa's research and development of dieback resistant jarrah is carried out at the Marrinup nursery and tissue culture laboratory.
The results of many years of seed testing and germination of native species carried out by the nursery are freely available and are published in Alcoa’s Environmental Research Note Number 27.
Reseach Note No. 27
[22 KB]
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