While kangaroo and emu meat is becoming a more common feature on Australian dinner tables, a meal of meat and three vegetables is still reliant on traditional staples such as peas, potatoes and carrots.

Key points: Experts in WA domesticating native vegetables which grow in sandy soil, unsuitable for growing grains or grazing

Experts in WA domesticating native vegetables which grow in sandy soil, unsuitable for growing grains or grazing The vegetables — the youlk and kulyu — have long been cultivated by Indigenous Australians

The vegetables — the youlk and kulyu — have long been cultivated by Indigenous Australians WA chefs have already shown interest in using them

That could be about to change in Western Australia, where a couple of indigenous root vegetables may soon be in commercial production.

Native plant agronomist Geoff Woodall has domesticated the youlk and the kulyu on his farm at Arthur River in the Great Southern region, and is working with Indigenous landholders to begin growing them commercially.

The youlk is an apiaceae species, like carrots and parsley, and grows in poor sandy soil, which is unsuitable for grain growing or grazing.

"We've focused our cultivation work on those poor sort of sandy soils which are pretty typical here in WA," Mr Woodall said.

"It's had a documented history of Indigenous use, so it gets over those food safety issues and it produces a large volume of tubers in a small volume of soil that [isn't] too deep."

His initial trials with kulyu, which is similar to the sweet potato, were less successful as they are more suited to the warmer conditions of the mulga country in WA's Gascoyne and Murchison regions.

His first crops were damaged by frost and the tubers grew too deep to be commercially viable.

"You have to move such an amazing amount of soil that it just makes it uneconomic, so we had to look at some other methods of cultivating the species," he said.

The solution was building a raised garden bed with a solid floor to prevent the kulyu from growing too deep.

"It's proof of concept and would work well with Indigenous groups to have these sorts of beds, even if they were just doing it for their own consumption," Mr Woodall said.

"It's not too labour intensive and [we're] using fairly simple materials to set up the beds."

Fine food market for native fare

WA chef Paul Iskov is a fan of using native foods in his cooking. ( ABC )

Although Mr Woodall has only produced small crops so far, he has targeted the fine food industry and believes there is a ready market.

"I had a lot to do with the food industry to start with and they pretty much said they wanted things that were pleasant to eat, they didn't want to pay truffle prices for these native vegetables, they wanted them to be realistically priced," Mr Woodall said.

One chef already singing the praises of both vegetables is Paul Iskov, who runs Fervor, a mobile pop-up restaurant producing fine dining in exotic outdoor locations around WA.

"You're not going to find beef, pork, chicken, tomatoes [or] carrots on our menu, it's going to be youlk, kulyu, blood root, emu, kangaroo, marron, grubs, ants — those kind of things," Mr Iskov said.

He was excited by the potential for Aboriginal communities to benefit from Mr Woodall's research.

"I think there's a great opportunity for Indigenous communities to be growing these or harvesting them, because every chef I talk to or people who come to our dinners are blown away by these different tubers," he said.

The kulyu, which is similar to the sweet potato. ( ABC )

Vincenzo Veletri, a Swan Valley chef and promoter for Slow Foods Australia, said the domestication of both crops would be an important step towards saving important traditional foods.

"What is important for us is to keep the food, because with time, the food disappears if no one is going to have a look at it," Mr Veletri said.

Up to a dozen communities on farms owned by the National Indigenous Land Corporation are now working on forming a collective to grow the vegetables and market them.

Kelly Flugge, a Banjelungup community leader at Bremer Bay, said it was an ideal diversification for small community-run farms.

"It's really value adding to the potential of the land through diversification of products but utilising traditional knowledge stuff," Mr Flugge said.

"This is what people are really drawn to, they're really excited about [it] and it's really about how we can maximise the economic potential of these lands and that equates simply to more business, more jobs."

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Watch the full story on WA's native vegetable endeavour on Landline, Sunday from midday on ABC TV.