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.

Nina Geraghty