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What is the Rare Fruit Society of South Australia Inc.?
The Rare Fruit Society of South Australia Inc. is a South Australian gardening and horticulture club for people who grow unusual, heritage and exotic fruit and food plants, especially species from cool-temperate, temperate, subtropical and elevated tropical climates. It is a membership-based society rather than a commercial nursery or retailer, and its website functions mainly as a hub for meeting notices, member resources and information about the group's activities.
What the society actually does
According to the website, its activities centre on:
- Monthly meetings with guest speakers and contributions from experienced members.
- Practical skills such as grafting, budding and propagation, taught through workshops, a library and locally produced fact sheets.
- A digital newsletter before each meeting, covering past speakers, field trips and member experiences.
- Field trips to established fruit properties, research stations and members' orchards, often with produce sampling.
- Trading tables at most meetings, where members can buy fruit trees, rootstocks, budwood, grafting material and unusual plants, plus books, grafting tools, tapes and sharpeners.
- Record-keeping of successes and failures with different species, which is useful in a climate like South Australia's where many tropical and subtropical plants are marginal.
- A heritage fruit tree orchard at Kanmantoo, established with Neutrog Ltd.
The society also maintains a members' area, a library and a Q&A section on its website. A listed example meeting was held at the San Giorgio Club in Payneham, with a guest speaker discussing 50 years of the society.
Who it suits
This is a good fit if you already grow fruit and want to move beyond the usual apples, citrus and stone fruit into rarer species, or if you want practical, local knowledge about what survives and crops in South Australia. It is less suited to someone looking for a quick retail purchase or a purely online community: the value is in meetings, workshops, field trips and swapping material with other growers.
How to decide whether to join
If you are considering membership, use the meeting programme as your test. Attend a meeting, see whether the speakers and trading table match your interests, and ask members about the species you want to grow. For broader context on rare and heritage fruit growing, the society sits alongside groups such as Fruit Tree Growers and the national rare fruit network represented by Rare Fruit Australia, while general growing advice is available from Gardening Australia.
How do I join the Rare Fruit Society of South Australia?
Joining the Rare Fruit Society of South Australia starts on its website, where membership is a separate section from the public pages. Open the Membership link in the main menu to see the current joining options and any application steps. If you are not yet ready to join, the About Us, Articles, Q&A and Links pages are open to browse first, while Members Area is restricted to logged-in members.
What membership gives you
The society is built around growing unusual fruit and food plants from cool-temperate, temperate, subtropical and elevated tropical regions, and it keeps records of what succeeds and fails locally. Members receive a digital newsletter before each meeting, can attend meetings with guest speakers, join propagation and grafting workshops, borrow from the library, and take part in field trips to orchards and research stations. At most meetings there is also a trading table for fruit trees, rootstocks, budwood, grafting material and unusual plants.
A practical joining path
- Read the Membership page first for the society's own instructions and current arrangements.
- Check the About Us and Contact Us pages if you want to ask about meeting attendance before committing.
- Note that meetings are held at the San Giorgio Club, 11 Henry Street, Payneham, and the listed November meeting begins at 7:30pm.
- If you mainly want the library, the site notes that only books ordered through the website will be available for collection, so that benefit depends on using the members' area.
A useful next step is to attend a meeting as a visitor if the society allows it, then join once you have seen whether the meeting format, trading table and workshop sessions suit your interests. If you grow fruit in South Australia and want local, experience-based advice rather than general gardening content, this group is aimed directly at you. For a broader comparison of Australian fruit-growing groups, see Rare Fruit Society of South Australia Inc. and, if you are outside South Australia, look for your state's own rare fruit or heritage fruit organisation.
When and where are the Rare Fruit Society meetings held?
The Rare Fruit Society of South Australia holds its meetings in person in the Payneham area of Adelaide. According to the site's current welcome notice, the next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 24th November 2026 at the San Giorgio Club, 11 Henry Street, Payneham, starting at 7:30pm. Parking is available at the venue and in the adjoining council car park; attendees are asked not to park on the street.
That notice describes a single upcoming meeting rather than a permanent schedule, so treat the date and venue as the latest published details and confirm before travelling. The meeting format is worth knowing: guest speakers, a library, a trading table for fruit trees, rootstocks, budwood and grafting supplies, and a shared supper where members bring labelled fruit or fruit baked goods from their gardens.
If you are planning a first visit, check the Rare Fruit Society of South Australia home page or contact the society shortly beforehand, since venues and dates can change and some activities are for members only. For a broader comparison of fruit-growing groups, [[site:rare fruit society of south australia|Rare Fruit Society]] alternatives are limited locally, but the Australian National Botanic Gardens and state horticultural societies can point you to propagation workshops if the meeting dates do not suit.
What fruit trees and plants can I buy at the trading table?
The trading table is a members' exchange rather than a retail nursery, so what appears on any given night depends on what other members have propagated and brought along. The society describes the table as offering fruit trees, rootstocks, budwood, grafting material and unusual plants, plus books, grafting tools, tapes and sharpeners, all for a modest outlay.
In practice, that means you can expect the kind of material home growers propagate themselves: young grafted or seedling trees, rootstocks for budding onto, and cut budwood or scion wood for grafting. The "unusual plants" wording suggests the mix shifts with the season and with whatever members are trialling — the society's focus is on fruit and food plants from cool-temperate, temperate, subtropical and elevated tropical regions, and it keeps records of successes and failures. The table is also where the society's heritage and rare variety material circulates, since members grow a large collection of rare and heritage variety fruit trees and maintain a heritage orchard at Kanmantoo.
What to expect, and what not to
| You can generally find | You should not assume |
|---|---|
| Fruit trees, rootstocks, budwood, grafting material | Named cultivars in commercial quantities |
| Unusual edible plants | Labelled retail-grade stock with guarantees |
| Books, grafting tools, tapes, sharpeners | Card payment or mail order |
| Seasonal, member-grown surplus | The same items every meeting |
If you want to buy
Turn up early in the meeting, bring cash in small notes, and ask the member behind the table what rootstock a tree is on and whether it suits your climate and soil — that information is the real value of buying here rather than at a nursery. If you are new, the practical next step is to join and start attending: the trading table operates at nearly every meeting, and the society also runs grafting, budding and propagation workshops, which is where you learn to turn a single stick of budwood into your own trees.
For meeting dates, venue and membership details, see Rare Fruit Society of South Australia Inc.. If you want to compare named varieties before buying, the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority listings at Australian Cultivar Registration Authority are a useful reference, though the table itself is the place to find locally proven material.
How can I learn to graft, bud, and propagate rare fruit trees?
The Rare Fruit Society of South Australia runs hands-on workshop sessions where members learn to graft, bud and propagate, and it backs those sessions with a library and locally produced fact sheets. So the shortest route is: join a group that meets in person, bring your own rootstock and scion wood to a workshop, and practise on cheap, vigorous material before you touch anything rare.
A practical learning path
- Learn the vocabulary first. Grafting joins a scion (the variety you want) onto a rootstock (the roots and lower trunk). Budding is the same idea using a single bud rather than a whole shoot. Propagating covers cuttings, layering, seed and division.
- Start with the easiest technique for your climate. For most beginners, whip-and-tongue grafting on dormant, similar-diameter wood, or chip budding in late summer, gives the highest take rate. Approach grafting is forgiving because both plants stay on their own roots until the union knits.
- Get timing right. Dormant-season grafting suits deciduous fruit; budding usually works when the bark slips in active growth. In a Mediterranean-to-temperate climate like South Australia's, avoid grafting in the heat of midsummer or during a dry spell.
- Practise on expendable wood. Apple, pear, fig and citrus are commonly used as learning material because they strike and graft relatively readily. Practise the cuts twenty times on prunings before making a real attempt.
- Keep records. Note the variety, rootstock, date, technique and outcome. The society explicitly keeps records of members' successes and failures, which is how a group accumulates knowledge that no single book contains.
What to bring to a workshop
- Sharp, clean bypass secateurs and a grafting knife
- Pruning saw for thicker stock
- Grafting tape or ties, and a sharpening stone
- Labelled scion wood, collected dormant and stored cool and moist
- Rootstocks or seedling pots to graft onto
Where to learn it
| Option | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Society workshops and meetings | Hands-on correction from experienced growers | Fixed dates, usually a membership fee |
| Member library and fact sheets | Reference between meetings | Borrowing may be limited to ordered titles |
| Field trips to orchards and research stations | Seeing mature, grafted trees and asking growers directly | Travel and scheduling |
| Trading tables at meetings | Cheap rootstocks, budwood and tools | Stock varies by season |
| Local TAFE, botanical garden or community orchard courses | Structured, accredited teaching | Less focus on unusual species |
The Rare Fruit Society of South Australia Inc. is at Rare Fruit Society of South Australia. For general propagation technique, RHS publishes clear grafting and budding guides, and Australian National Botanic Gardens covers Australian plant propagation. Your state agriculture department's horticulture pages are also worth checking for climate-specific timing.
A concrete first project
If you have a mature, healthy citrus or fig in the ground, take dormant wood from it in late winter, buy or raise a few seedling rootstocks, and attempt five grafts of the same variety. Expect some to fail; the point of the first season is technique, not production. Once you can reliably get three or four takes out of five, move on to the rare material you actually want to multiply.
A useful decision rule: if a plant is expensive, slow-growing or hard to replace, propagate it onto a vigorous, well-adapted rootstock rather than trying to root cuttings of it. Grafting buys you disease resistance and vigour that a cutting cannot.
What is the heritage fruit tree orchard at Kanmantoo?
The Kanmantoo orchard is a heritage fruit tree collection established by the Rare Fruit Society of South Australia in conjunction with Neutrog Ltd. It is a real, physical planting of rare and heritage fruit varieties, not a nursery catalogue or a research trial in the academic sense. Its purpose is to keep older and uncommon varieties growing, fruiting and observable in South Australian conditions, and to give members a shared place to see how those trees actually perform.
For a home grower, the practical value is the chance to see mature trees rather than buy blind. Heritage varieties are often poorly documented for local climate, ripening time, storage life and disease behaviour, so a collection like this acts as a reference point. If you are choosing a tree for a backyard in the Adelaide Hills, on the plains or in a drier area, seeing the same variety grown nearby tells you more than a generic description from an interstate supplier.
The society's broader activities support that orchard role: meetings with guest speakers, grafting and budding workshops, a library, locally produced fact sheets, a members' newsletter, field trips to orchards and research stations, and a trading table where members can buy trees, rootstocks, budwood and grafting material. The Kanmantoo site sits within that culture of recording successes and failures and passing the knowledge on.
If you want to visit or learn which varieties are held there, the society's own site and meetings are the starting point: Rare Fruit Society of South Australia Inc.. For broader context on heritage fruit conservation in Australia, the national collection and grower network at Heritage Fruits Australia is a useful companion.
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