How Rooibos Is Grown, From Dormant Seed to Rested Field

Rooibos seed does not behave like garden seed. Aspalathus linearis has hard seeds that lie in the soil until fire stimulates them to germinate, a 2025 ecology study of wild rooibos populations holds⁴.

4. Kraaij & Pretorius, Population Ecology and Harvesting of Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) and Its Ecotypes in the Wild, South Africa, Plant-Environment Interactions (2025)

Hand-collected seed goes into the nursery in late January, at the height of the southern summer, where it is germinated under controlled conditions, Cederberg grower Klipopmekaar describes its own operation¹. ProAgri⁵ puts the window slightly later, nurseries germinating seed in February and March. The seed goes into the nursery in the dead of summer, weeks to a couple of months before the rains that will let it move to the field.

1. Rooibos Farming & Production Process, Klipopmekaar
5. Rooibos word wereld se lieflingstee deur klimaatsverandering bedreig? (Is rooibos, the world's favourite tea, threatened by climate change?), ProAgri

The seedlings then spend roughly four months under nursery care, Klipopmekaar's account states¹. ProAgri is more specific: seedlings are transplanted from June through August, it reports⁵, as the Cederberg's winter rains set in and the worst of the summer heat has passed. A seedling planted into cooling, wetting ground gets a season to root before it has to face a Cederberg summer on its own, and a planting season is judged a success or a failure largely on whether the rain arrived on cue.

1. Rooibos Farming & Production Process, Klipopmekaar
5. Rooibos word wereld se lieflingstee deur klimaatsverandering bedreig? (Is rooibos, the world's favourite tea, threatened by climate change?), ProAgri

A commercial field is planted at roughly 8,000 to 16,000 seedlings per hectare, of which usually fewer than half survive to become productive bushes, a figure a 2025 study of wild rooibos populations cites in passing⁴. The cultivated number itself traces to one of the paper's own co-authors, a personal observation. What the same paper did measure directly, in the wild, is firmer: wild rooibos growing at a median density of only 839 plants per hectare, with individual stands ranging from as sparse as 25 plants per hectare to as dense as nearly 30,000.

4. Kraaij & Pretorius, Population Ecology and Harvesting of Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) and Its Ecotypes in the Wild, South Africa, Plant-Environment Interactions (2025)

A surviving seedling is left to root into coarse, acidic, nutrient-poor sandy soil. Research holds that rooibos grows best with little or no tillage and no irrigation, ProAgri reports⁵, and certified-organic rooibos is grown without any artificial fertiliser at all, the South African Rooibos Council states³. Klipopmekaar's own fields are not quite that austere: the farm monitors nutrient levels and adds organically-certified fertiliser when the soil needs it, it reports¹, rather than feeding the crop on a fixed schedule the way a conventional row crop would be fed. Rooibos is a legume. The roots grow to roughly a metre deep in normal conditions, Rooibos Council chairman Martin Bergh told ProAgri⁵.

5. Rooibos word wereld se lieflingstee deur klimaatsverandering bedreig? (Is rooibos, the world's favourite tea, threatened by climate change?), ProAgri
3. Frequently Asked Questions, South African Rooibos Council
1. Rooibos Farming & Production Process, Klipopmekaar

It takes about eighteen months before a new field can be cut for the first time, the South African Rooibos Council states³. Once it starts producing, a field is harvested annually for roughly four to five years before it is retired, Klipopmekaar reports of its own operation¹. Retired fields go under rotation crops instead for a further one to two years, resting before rooibos goes back in, the same source describes¹. A working rooibos farm, at any given moment, is therefore always a patchwork: some fields cutting their fourth harvest, some standing under rotation crops, some four months old in the ground and not yet ready to touch.

3. Frequently Asked Questions, South African Rooibos Council
1. Rooibos Farming & Production Process, Klipopmekaar

This whole calendar, the summer germination, the winter rain, the metre-deep taproot, depends on the Cederberg's winter rainfall arriving roughly when it always has. That dependence is now the industry's open worry. Climate models project the growing region warming sharply toward 2070 and a large share of the bush's suitable habitat disappearing with it, the full projections, and the rain-fed farming they threaten, set out separately. Seedlings need to be in the ground by the end of August to catch what remains of the winter rain, growers are told, ProAgri reports⁵. Miss that window on a crop planted once a year, in one fixed season, and there is no partial recovery.

5. Rooibos word wereld se lieflingstee deur klimaatsverandering bedreig? (Is rooibos, the world's favourite tea, threatened by climate change?), ProAgri