AT WHAT AGE DO BAOBAB TREES START TO PRODUCE FRUIT?

Flower and fruit production usually only takes place once a tree is a certain size. Baobab tree growth is dependent on access to water. Where trees grow in high rainfall areas (+1000mls …per year) baobabs can reach maturity much more quickly than in arid areas. We have worked out that in Venda where rainfall is 350ml per year it can take a ‘young’ baobab 200 years before it produces its first baobab fruit ! Here is a picture of a youthful 180 year old tree. It gives you a real sense of how easily we take the resources of nature for granted without appreciating the energy and time nature puts into the creation of what we harvest.

 

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86 Years of Measuring Baobab Trees!

86 Years of Measuring Baobab Trees!

Skelmwater is a bare stony hillside dotted with baobab trees, but this has become a special place for Sarah Venter and Diana Mayne.  The baobab trees here are each numbered and painted with a neat stripe around their girth.  The girth of these trees has been measured since 1931.    Diana and Sarah discovered this plot in 2002 when they first went to visit it and found that the measurements had been forgotten and no one was measuring them any more.

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A data-check for Kuduland’s Bao Mama

A data-check for Kuduland’s Bao Mama

“I often get asked to assess large baobab trees, either for their size or their health,” says Dr Sarah Venter, founder of the Baobab Foundation. “This Greater Kuduland Reserve’s Baobab is one of the biggest ones I have ever measured”. With a circumference of 25 m, height of 12 m and crown diameter of 24 […]

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Baobab pods in Germany!

Baobab pods in Germany!

Polished and decorated baobab pods found in Germany! Seen at a stand selling exotic seeds, dried flowers and pods from around the world at the Kornelimunster Historische Jahrmarkt in Aachen. What a surprise!

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