plant screw

What it does

The roots of tree seedlings often get damaged during their transplantation. PS is a tool that uproots seedlings effectively without damaging the roots. PS encourages an ergonomic posture and thus empowers the user. Let's make reforestation more effective!

Your inspiration

Efficient reforestation doesn‘t start with planting new trees in the forest. It starts long before that. Seedlings must first be cultivated, and a healthy root system is crucial for early growth. However, often the roots get damaged during transplantation. The trees are still planted in the forest but only have a small chance of growing into healthy trees. Current uprooting methods are neither efficient nor healthy for forestry workers. Efficient reforestation has become even more important than ever because of the climate crisis because woods and forests absorb atmospheric carbon and lock it up for centuries.

How it works

By forging and testing our own toolbits developed the ideal combination of material profile, length and twist of the spiral tool bit. This ensures maximum efficiency with minimal damage of the roots while uprooting the seedlings. The tool bit is placed percisley at the bottom of the seedling trunk and has to be drilled into the ground. A wide T-handle helps to drill the tool even into harder soil. Once the tool is fully drilled into the ground it can be pulled out. The seedling can now be removed from the tool bit. The toolbit leaves nealy all the dirt in the ground, only taking out the seedling with the roots. In addition, we have developed a mechanical tool that enables an even more ergonomic workflow by reducing the movements for the user. The integrated gearbox-mechanism converts a back and forth motion of the side handle into rotational motion of the tool bit. With this the spiral can be „pumped“ into the ground, making a change of grip unnecessary.

Design process

After looking at the entire process and aspects of reforestation, doing a lot of research and interviews, we came across the problem of the seedlings' low chance of survival after planting. We had found our first approach through analogies in pest plant removal. Because the aim is to remove the entire root, only with the exeption that the root gets damaged in the removal process. We had to rethink the process and looked for solutions on how to properly uproot the seedling. We spent a lot of time testing different prototypes and were able to achieve the greatest success with a bent steel spiral. We tested spirals with several profile types on different tree species and forest soils. It was very difficult to find the balance between an easy removal and the damage of the roots. After many test series we could find the perfect spiral for our tool bit and we noticed usability challenges we solved in the further process. Through colors, materials and the developed design language we were able to define different function areas of our tool. Contact surfaces stand out due to their materiality of cork, while moving elements differ from the others due to a well-aimed placed chamfer.

How it is different

While many projects deal with the planting process in general, we have analyzed the entire process and localized the enormous importance of the root in the growth of the tree. Plant Screw not only increases the tree’s chances of survival, but also makes the work of the forest workers easier, healthier and more ergonomic. If more seedlings survive the planting, more successful planted trees could be grown in the future. The tool is very easy to handle and allows private forest owners to replant the seedlings created by natural rejuvenation in their own forest. Existing resources can be used and allow a more effective maintenance of one’s own forest. Transplanting seedlings from your own forest has a number of advantages. Seedlings that have already grown in the forest are already adapted to the conditions and, in contrast to fertilized plants from the tree nursery, contain more bitter substances, which prevents browsing through animals.

Future plans

The topic of reforestation will become even more important in the future. For this reason, it is important to make reforestation more efficient and simple. Every tree planted makes a positive contribution to our environment, in producing oxygen and storing atmospheric carbon. We want to raise awareness with PlantScrew and hope that we can reach many people with it. So far, PlantScrew is a project from our fourth semester at the design university, but we see great potential in our product for further development.

Awards

iF Design Talent Award 2022 - Climate Action