pale ground

[KLPNO]

Hello everyone
I'd like to ask about the meaning of "pale" in the follwing sentence.

He ate his normal first-meal and rode his two-wheel over the ridge to work -- a small landowners' school set on softer, paler ground just beyond his homeland.

Does "pale" in this case refer to colour only, meaning not as dark as in his homeland, or is it used as the opposite of fertile?

[Anglika]

In this context, colour.