In February 2024 we tried out a new way of growing baobabs for wild planting. We want to plant up to 100 baobabs into the wild and in order to do this successfully the trees need to be at least 3 meters tall so that they don’t get browsed by goats. For a number of years we tried growing the baobab saplings in ever bigger and bigger bags, but struggled to get them to grow tall enough in the bags. Thus earlier this year we planted 92 trees into the soil in “plantation” style. We expected that in the soil the trees will grow fast and we would be able to dig them out to replant them in the wild. We will be assessing the baobab growth twice a year to see how they are doing and to reward the baobab growers for taking care of the trees. August 2024 was our first assessment since we planted the trees in February 20204. We found that all the trees, except trees nibbled by goats, had grown nicely. Our next assessment will be in another six moths.
Thanks to the ongoing support from our donors we can experiment in ways to successfully plant baobabs for our future.
