Measuring Baobab girth

It feels a bit like when you mark off the height of your children on the doorpost, but every year in May Diana Mayne, a baobab colleague, and I visit Skelmwater Baobab research plot to do annual growth measurements. This research plot was started in 1931 to measure the annual diameter growth of baobabs. This year was the 83rd measurement and most of the trees got a bit wider due to the good rains, but some years if its very dry, the trees shrink. This little tree is the smallest tree on the plot.

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Waiting for the baobab fruit to drop

Waiting for the baobab fruit to drop

The area has had lovely late rains, but this has affected our normal fruit harvesting time.  Normally all the fruit would have fallen to the ground by now and been picked up by our harvesters, but this year more than half of them are still on the trees.  So we are waiting for the fruit […]

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Brave Baobab Seedlings

Brave Baobab Seedlings

These baobab seedling pics remind me of the boldness of youth. And these days sadly, if they’re growing in an inhabited area, they’re bound to get eaten by livestock. Out there in the ‘wild’ they just have to make the most of a few weeks of life and then the thousand year promise in their genes is extinguished. Which is why the work of the Baobab Guardians becomes so important. 

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Baobabs & Bicycles

Baobabs & Bicycles

For all you cycling fans out there, if you’re in Louis Trichardt this weekend, do stop by and check out the Kremetart Cycle Tour – so named because the route goes past a significant number of Baobab Trees on the way.   It’s fun for the whole family (there are kiddies races, stage races and mountain […]

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