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.

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 […] Continue Reading