By Dr Sarah Venter

Plantation-style baobabs

Young baobabs are being planted in “plantation-style” in seven homesteads in Mabvete village in northern Venda.  This method is being used to boost the young baobabs growth so that they reach a “safe” height before wild planting.  See post here. Newly planted baobabs in plantation-style This week we visited the trees to see how they were doing.  We tagged each [...] Continue Reading
By Dr Sarah Venter

I live under a baobab, don’t know much about it, but now I do!

Nearly every child in Africa knows what a baobab tree is.  Nearly child in Africa eats baobab powder.  But beyond knowing what the tree looks like and that it has a nutritious fruit, very little is generally known about their ecology.   The Little Big Baobab Book (free pdf download available here) addresses FAQ’s of baobabs.  Translated into TshiVenda and easy [...] Continue Reading
By Dr Sarah Venter

A fresh coat of paint for Mutele B Preschool

Once a year we reach out to some Preschools in areas where baobabs grow and ask them what they need.  This year we supported the Mutale B Preschool with sourcing the exact colour paint required for their classroom renovations.
By Dr Sarah Venter

Wild planting baobabs at Nthakeni

Nthakeni is a lovely spot on the Mutale River in communal land situated near the northern Pafuri gate of the Kruger National Park.  The area is leased from the Nkotswi community and has been fenced allowing the natural vegetation to grow and seedlings to recruit without disturbance of domestic animals.  Nthakeni is thus one of the few places where baobabs [...] Continue Reading
By Dr Sarah Venter

Building materials for new classrooms

Baobab Foundation supported Mukovhawabale Preschool and the Mbodi tsha Fhasi Preschool with much needed cement for the building of their new classrooms. Cement for Mukovawabale Preschool
By Dr Sarah Venter

Mukomawabane Pre-School Reopened

The children in Mukomawabane village have not been going to preschool for the past few years and thus the kids have losing out on the opportunity of formal early childhood education.  This is because the parents in the village, many of them unemployed and without more than primary school education themselves, did not see the value for children to go [...] Continue Reading
By Dr Sarah Venter

The challenge of wild planting baobabs

Young baobabs are delicious especially to goats, impala and baboons.  So a multipronged approach is needed.  One is to identify areas that don’t have these animals and use their absence to successfully establish baobabs (watch this space) or where these animals are plentiful to find creative solutions. The first approach was to simply protect the young trees with wire cages, [...] Continue Reading
By Dr Sarah Venter

Another 22 baobabs and counting

Baobabs on confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers continue to be vulnerable to the over utilization by elephants.  The only way to effectively protect baobabs from elephants is to wrap them in wire mesh.  In November 2023 the Baobab Foundation wrapped another 22 baobabs in wire mesh.  Over the course of three days another 15 baobabs were protected in [...] Continue Reading
By Dr Sarah Venter

Grow your own baobab

Baobabs produce a large fruit which are filled with hard kidney-shaped seeds.  These seeds are “nature-designed” to survive harsh conditions and to germinate at exactly the right time so that the young seedling can grow and survive in the wild.  Our job is to crack that code by mimicking the natural conditions that stimulate germination and allow the seedlings to [...] Continue Reading
By Dr Sarah Venter

Do bees pollinate nocturnal baobab flowers?

Pabalelo Phori (MSc candidate) investigates the role of bees and other insects visiting baobab flowers. The buzzing of bees around baobab flowers in the early morning is a common sight and although bees are an important pollinator of many species, do they actually play a role in pollinating baobab flowers?  This is the important question that Pabalelo will be investigating [...] Continue Reading