Profile on Steve Trollip
Steve Trollip was borne in Carolina ( Easterns Transvaal ) and matriculated at Jeppe Boys High.
After a brief period with the South African Air Force and SABC, he moved to Mobil Oil (Nelspruit)
where he spent eight years overseeing the distribution of fuel from the Maputo Refinery to South Africa.
After launching a series of horticultural businesses including a garden service, nursery and chicken manure business, Steve saw the composting potential in Mpumalanga’s large pine bark dumps and launched Bark Enterprises from a property in Brits. Grass Roots Nursery, his second business has been the natural outcome of his love affair with palms and cycads, As board member of the International Palm Society, Steve has spent a decade propagating over 60 species of cold and frost tolerant palm species from seed collected in Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Spain and
the USA.
His most recent venture has been to set up a palmetum at Letsitele on a farm
( BUCKAWAYO ) where the climate favours the growth of sub-
and cycads.He is also experimenting with several palm species suitable for the
indoor landscaping market. This palmetum will eventually form part of a larger
botanical garden, in which Steve hopes to include 500 different species of palms
( 200 species are already planted ) , and the 37 species if indigenous cycad.
Steve joined the ornamental growers sector of SANA in 1997 and was appointed SANA Vice President of Membership in 1998. Lelani, Steve’s wife plays an important role in all his business ventures. Both his children have entered the horticultural field. Their daughter, Vanessa works for Real Landscapes and his son Patrick is currently working for Grass Roots Nursery after stints in nurseries in Spain and the USA.
BUCKAWAYO: CYCAD HAVEN OR IS THAT HEAVAN
Tuesday 15 October 2001: 20:15hrs
Buckawayo is the name of my farm at Letsitele in the far Northern Province of South Africa. Buckawayo is very central to many of the exceptionally rare species of Encephalartos found in this area. The climate is wonderfully hot in summer, on a good day the mercury will touch 40°C. The converse to this is that on the coldest night in July the temperature will not drop below 5°C.
When I bought the farm in November 1997 it was an abandoned mango farm. The reason for this was very simple, almost no water during the last severe drought in 1991.
With good rains over the last eight years the water table has risen significantly but water is a very precious resource on the farm and with this uppermost in my mind I reckoned that cycads would be well suited to cultivating at Buckawayo. Only 30kms to the east is the habitat of E.dyerianus fairly safe in its mountain eyrie, access to this habitat is very difficult, only 4 wheel drive vehicles can get there. It is almost impossible for private visitors to get to these cycads.
About 200kms to the north is the very vulnerable habitat of E.hirsutis. Back at Buckawayo
you can see the very impressive range of mountains known as the northern Drakensberg
(Dragon Mountain). It is here within sight of Buckawayo that three critically endangered
species grow, namely E.nubi-
To the east of the habitat of these three species also on the top of this mountain
range one finds a peak known as, Mariepskop, the site of a military radar station,
installed in the 1960's to watch over the sub-
Back at Buckawayo if you were to travel northwest for 30kms you would arrive at the
magnificent Modjaji forest -
The second last species you will encounter in fairly close proximity to Buckawayo is E.inopinus growing on the same range of mountains near Penge the site of an old asbestos mine. I am afraid to say that this species is on the verge of extinction. Earlier this year a local farmer was charged with having 56 of these plants in his possession. These plants had all been poached from the wild. This very unique and beautiful cycad will probably only be represented in cultivation in the future.
The last plant close to Buckawayo is the miniature E.cupidus. This plant occurs in the Blyde River Canyon where it has been poached to virtual extinction. At the Cycad Conference in Miami in 1999 we were told that a local muti man (medicine man) had chopped out 45 plants for use in traditional healing.
Within 150-
Sorry I had almost forgotten, I should be writing about the cycads growing at Buckawayo. Having an idea is easy, having an ideal requires a little more thought but combining the idea and the ideal requires a vision. A vision associated with cycads requires a lot of money. This was the hard part.
A few options were available to me to try and contact cycad growers and cycad
enthusiasts. I used three books as a reference source, Dyers book Bothalia, Goodes
book Africa Cycads and lastly Cynthia Giddy's cycad book. In the acknowledgement
section of all three books names were given of people who had helped to gather
information for the books. Unfortunately about 90% of the people mentioned had already passed away, but I was able to find about five people whom I contacted and who were
able to give me names of people they knew who collected cycads. From these people
whom I contacted I was able to acquire some of my very earliest plants. As time
passed and I became more discerning as to whom I could buy from I also found very
reliable sources of seed and seedlings.
In order for me to afford more plants I started trading in cycads. I soon found out that this was not an easy game. Plants were very expensive especially the very rare ones, the other major problem I encountered was the ease with which a plant would die. I am very pleased to say that in the six years I have learnt what not to do with cycads.
My collection of seedlings was growing fairly well, both in numbers and in size, but I still had no permanent place for them. This very important factor was enough motivation for me to acquire Buckawayo.
In August 1998 I planted my very first cycad in the ground at Buckawayo. With this very first planting I had assumed a very major responsibility towards the conservation of cycads. My aim with this venture was fourfold, firstly the totally hedonistic experience, cycads give me lots of pleasure. Secondly, the very important job of trying to become involved with conservation. Thirdly this facility would be available for the training of University and Technikon students in the conservation and cultivation of cycads.
Lastly the venture would not succeed if the commercial aspect were not part of the entire conservation ethic. I had to be very aware of the accuracy of seed and seedling sources. This was achieved by careful and thorough purchases. I was able to ascertain in our local journal, "Encephelartos" that seed collecting trips had been done to certain African states. I contacted the person who led the expedition and from him I was able to buy many species of local and African cycads. Over the next year I was able to buy about 1000 African cycads. As fate would have it I received a call from this person one day saying that he had decided to emigrate and would I be interested in buying his cycads. Wow!! What a question? Of course I would and somehow I did.
The plants were all duly loaded and transported over a period of one month to our farm in Brits near Pretoria. From here I started transferring some of these plants to Buckawayo where they were replanted into new containers and marked. In the meantime lots of seed had germinated and had been planted into containers where they were growing into healthy young plants.
By January 1999 I had planted over 600 cycads in the ground, most of these 600 plants
were E.dyerianus, E.Eugene-
10 Months/ One year after doing the measuring and documenting I repeated the procedure.
My initial response was disappointment but as I analyzed growth that had taken place
I came to the conclusion that it is not possible for all the plants to grow at the
same rate. The E.middelburgensis outperformed all three other species, second was
the E.laevifolius, third was E.nubi-
E.middelburgensis 20%
E.laevifolius 16%
E.nubi-
E.eugene-
This trial has not been conducted scientifically but the data has been accurately recorded and documented.
Wednesday. 16 October 2001.
In January of this year I decided that it was time to attempt a very accurate scientific experiment. What I needed was a very large shade house, after deciding which species and how many of each I wanted to plant I designed and built a shade house of 2400m2.»>
The design would be a structure of 100 meters long and 24 meters wide. Lengthwise
the treated gum poles (125/150mm) would be planted at intervals of 5 meters, that
is 21 poles. In the width the poles would be planted at a distance of 6 meters apart.
This would then give me grid sections of 5m x 6m, a very workable 30m2 per grid.
Eighty grids of 30m2 total area of 2400m2. In the length I would have line A -
Depending on the size and species of the seedling I would then allocate 30 plants per grid section, that is 1m2 per plant. I intended planting 3 to 5 year old seedlings that
had been container grown. Some of the seedlings were older and larger, I would then
allocate either 16 or 20 plants per grid section 1,6 -
The soil is a sandy loam very deep red color with exceptionally good drainage capabilities. The entire area was ploughed to a depth of 400mm; this was done to relieve soil compaction at an upper level. The entire area was then fertilized using organic phosphate (bone meal). Dolomitic lime was also applied at the rate of lOOgrms per square meter to raise the P.H. of the soil. The P.H. of the soil was analyzed at 5.2.1 will monitor the soil P.H. on an annual basis.
After completion of the structure and the ploughing of the soil nothing was done for a period of 30 days. This was to allow weeds to show, the weeds were removed and the area leveled to allow for the marking of the planting holes.
Each hole measuring 400mm x 400mm across, as well as 400mm deep. The hole was dug and the soil removed to the exterior of the shade house. Once thirty holes had been dug and the soil removed we then set about preparing the correct soil medium mat would then be used in the planting hole.
The combination of mediums I decided to use is as follows. I screened the existing soil that had been removed from the hole using a 15mm screen. I still needed fairly large particles as well as the smaller stones that the soil had contained,
I used this soil at a rate of 1/3 mixed with a very clean coarse river sand also at a ratio of 1/3. To this I added again at a ratio of 1/3 a very well composted and screened pine bark medium. This medium was measured to have an A.F.P, (air filled porosity) of 30% that is very well drained yet still able to hold adequate moisture. For the actual planting I used an organic fertilizer again, bird guano from the platforms off our West coast. This fertilizer contains good N.PK, trace elements as well as a growth hormone. We would dig prepare and plant 30 holes at a time. Once the cycad had been planted we record the diameter of the caudexes, number of leaves as well as overall condition of the plant.
Rating.
a) Minimum of 25mm caudex diameter and 4 or better strong leaves. 1
b) Minimum of 20 -
c) Less than 20mm caudexes diameter and 1 only leaf. 3
The initial planning was to plant 23 species of cycads. Certain of these species would be planted in multiples of thirty. For example E.tegulaneus was available in fairly large quantities so I decided to plant 5 blocks of 30 plants per block, whereas E.munchji and E. sepfentrionalis not being easy to obtain I was only able to plant one block of each, that is 30 plants each of these two species. The seed of the E. tegulaneus was collected from habitat. The seedlings of the E.munchii I received from the curator of the Durban botanical garden, while the seed of the E. septentrionalis was also habitat collected.
Using four people per grid block (30m2). That is two labourers and two students; it took a full day to complete the entire exercise from digging hole to mixing the medium to finally planting the relevant cycads.
The following cycads have already been planted in their appropriate blocks:
1) E. lehmanii -
2) E. tegulaneus -
3) E. middelburgensis -
4) E. eugene -
5) E.sclavoi-
6) E. princeps -
7) E. msinganus -
8) E. cerinus -
9) E. horridus -
10) E. umbeluziensis -
11) E. altensteinii -
12) E. hildebrandii -
13) E. inopinus -
14) E. nubi-
15) E. paucidentatus -
16) E. caffer -
17) E. lebomboensis -
18) E. woodii (x) natalensis -
19) E. concinnus -
20) E. septentrionalis -
21) E.munchii-
22) E. longifolius -
23) E. laevifolius -
Already a total of 1227 cycads have been planted since the 2nd of April 2001.1 anticipate that the balance of the cycads will be planted end of December 2001. On three separate occasions students of horticulture have participated in this project, that is a total of thirteen students who had until then never had any exposure to cycads whatsoever. With this project I hope to achieve many objectives, primary objective being to create awareness of the plight of our cycads to the next generations of potential cycad enthusiasts.
I intend running practical workshops for students twice a year. The workshops will
last for about ten days, the only restrictions I have are that they be bona-
The farm has facilities to accommodate five students at a time; this training will be open to local as well as foreign students. Training is done free of charge, the students are fed accommodated and paid a nominal salary. Transport from Pretoria to Letsitele is available if needed.
In closing the system that I have devised where the cycads are planted in grid blocks
of 30 is very easy to manage. Cycads are allocated an individual number where monitoring
will be possible. In grid block A the first cycad planted will be no 1 Al and the
last one 1 A30. The next grid block will be 1 Bl -
What do I personally hope to achieve from this? Firstly as the owner of this operation I will make the decisions as to what I do with the plants. I am hoping that many of these plants will mature and eventually become seed producers, but primarily this will remain a commercial venture. If plants become too congested they will be lifted and containerized for resale. Hopefully many botanic gardens will want to buy plants from Buckawayo for planting in their gardens.
Secondly it is vital to gain credibility from all persons involved in conservation, whether it be from academics, enthusiasts, commercial growers or generally just the private person who wants one cycad in a pot. I hope to work with nature conservation on this project, I would be more than willing to arrange workshops for nature conservation officials who need to be trained in cycad I.D, or any other aspects related to cycad conservation.
Unfortunately I don't know of any project that has succeeded where local people have become involved with cycad propagation. Neither the Edendale project in Natal nor the Mananga project in the far Eastern Mpumalanga has succeeded as a commercial venture.
On a positive note I will quote from a few letters received from students who have trained at Buckawayo.
Comments: Jan-
.... And then there is a collection of cycads that will set most peoples pulses racing, what struck me was to see how close Steve is to his plants. At Buckawayo one learns how to love a plant, my interest ' became a love, a love for plants I never knew existed.
Comments: Ilona 3rd year B.Sc. student University Of Pretoria.
The Trollips are passionate about their palms and cycads because so many cycads are very endangered they have made it their life's work to collect and grow the plants, whether it be from seeds, suckers or the plant itself. Their plan for the near future is to complete the collection as far as possible and create a conservation environment.
Comments: Jana van den Berg. 2nd year B.Sc. student University of Pretoria.
Cycads are almost a sub-
Comment: Marine Pienaar. 1st Year B.Sc. student University of Pretoria.
The conservation of. cycads is something Steve is very keen on achieving. We were very happy to be taken to Mariepskop to photograph E. laevifolius in habitat. We saw slides of terrible habitat destruction as well as heard horrific stories about cycad poaching. It is very scary to think that people will ruin an entire habitat for the sake of money. I saw how two people with a love for these plants could make a difference. A love becomes a passion, a passion becomes a lifestyle, and for this reason I know that the cycads at Buckawayo are safe and loved.
Comments: Elza Kuhn. 3rd Year B.Sc. student University of Pretoria.
Admiration, joy and sorrow are but a few words to describe my experience at Buckawayo. Admiration for all the species of palms and cycads and the passion with which they are being grown as well as the knowledge of the subject. Joy at the species that have adjusted and are growing, also for the rare species we saw growing. Finally, sorrow, for the cycads that have been virtually eradicated in their habitat. Cycads, one and all are imbedded deep in my heart forever.
Plans for the future are well underway, a second shade house of 3000m2 has been completed, work on construction of the third shade house has commenced. I have been very fortunate to acquire a very large collection of very rare cycads. The cycads that I have bought will be transported to Buckawayo only 40kms away.
Approximately 300 of the 7OO plants are suckers from the adult plants, these suckers have all been established in containers for a few years.
These rare plants, which include E. dolomiticus, E. heenanii, E. cupidus, as well as all the other rare category plants will be planted in the new shade houses.
The mature cycads, which include E. inopinus, E. dolomiticus, E. nubi-
and E. laevifolius will be carefully removed and replaced in colonies at Buckawayo for future seed production.
I would like to thank my wife Lelanie for her support in this Endeavour as well as for her unwavering support despite what at times felt like insurmountable obstacles. I love cycads.
S.W. K. Trollip.
