Day 2 - Sampling plants in the Desert

Most people associate the name Pella with delicious large dates and a green oasis surrounded by palm trees in dry desert-like environment.

Modern day Pella boasts an imposing cathedral built by the Anglican missionaries in 1814.The town was named after the ancient town in Biblical times that served as a refuge for Christians who fled from the Roman soldiers. Around modern day Pella gemstones like malachite, jasper and rose quarts can still be found. Although Pella is a few kilometers away from the Orange River at the base of the stark Great Pella Mountains life is still a struggle against the harsh elements of this extreme climate.

Hair nets and coats compulsory while visting the Karstens Date Depot

Date plantation

Klein Pella owned by Piet Karsten, is situated a few kilometers away from this settlement and is world renowned for the quality of the dates produced. The original Medjoul dates came from Morocco and the first date trees were planted on this farm from 1980 onwards. Today, the farm is about 18,000hectares in size with 14,000palm trees. Vineyards are also cultivated on this farm. The area is ideally suited for the cultivation of these fine quality dates due to the dry climate and high temperature and the proximity of a water source. Every date tree requires 1,200 liters of water daily and the water is pumped from the Orange River and flooded in the orchards or watered by micro irrigation. No chemicals are used but the farming of dates is labour intensive with 500 labourers working shifts around the clock. One thousand tons of dates are produced every year on Klein Pella Farm and 60% of this production is exported to all over the world.

Exploring, on a Toyota of course!

Sampling

The teams of botanists set out early this morning to explore the surroundings around Klein Pella Guest Farm and returned late afternoon to classify and document the finds of the day in the field laboratory.

Anthony Magee is a Senior Scientist at the South African National Biodiversity Institute where he is based at the Compton Herbarium, Kirstenbosch. Together with Stephen Boatwright from the University of the Western Cape they are leading a large scale national project, involving many other specialists from around the country, to document the diverse plants that occur in the summer rainfall Karoo regions of the Northern and Western Cape Province. This information will be used to produce a book which will help to identify the plants from the region and their known geographic distributions. This area is thought to contain about 3 000 plant species but as it is still so poorly explored by botanists, this figure remains hypothetical with many new species still to be discovered.

The team in the Quiver Wood near Pella

Detailed records of utmost importance

Today we explored the Gariep Desert which is one of the most arid regions in the country. It was fascinating to see how many species grow and flower under these extreme conditions and particularly how rapidly they have responded to the recent rains of just a few days earlier. Already the veld was full of seedlings and even the bulbous plants had produced their first sets of leaves.  As a result we were able to collect several very interesting plants, together with DNA material and photographs.

The team working  in the lab at Klein Pella, organising their inputs to the iBol Database