Wood ‘robot’ can plant seeds in remote places. Watch it drill into soil

After a forest fire, land managers can speed up vegetation’s recovery by reseeding the crisped land, often from planes or helicopters. But success is uncertain. Birds eat the seeds, or they might not germinate if the soil is too hard. Now, researchers have designed a lightweight wooden carrier that corkscrews the seeds securely into the ground, improving the odds for the landscape’s rehabilitation. Their work is inspired by the stork’s bill geranium, whose seeds pop out of their pods, fly through the air, and drill into the soil with their corkscrew-shaped tails. To make the humanmade version, the team first softened thin strips of oak by boiling them with lye and sodium sulfite. Then, they shaped the strips by placing them on a mold, warping the wood’s internal fibers in different ways on the top and bottom so that they curl when moistened and uncurl as they dry (see video, above). Over time, the seed-bearing carrier twists into a soft surface like a drill bit. In field tests, the carriers successfully drilled their seeds into the ground 80% of the time , the researchers report today in Nature . The carrier can also deliver a coating of fertilizer and beneficial fungi along with the seed, further upping its chances of survival. Right now, each carrier is made by hand, making the technique too work intensive and expensive to scale up. But if the manufacturing can be automated and made cheaper, the researchers note, it could be a powerfu...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news