This new planting and tree planting system for arid and semi-arid zones, named Groasis Waterboxx, is an innovative plant breeding solution that guarantees first-year survival of more than 90% in the Sahara desert. And only with 50 liters of water.
Waterboxx collects water from nocturnal condensation and occasional showers to water the plant interior in small doses. The container also prevents water from evaporating and protects the roots from the sun and from inclement weather or small animals, which facilitates the growth of trees.
How Waterboxx Works?
WATERBOXX is aimed at increasing the percentage of rooting of the plants to be introduced in forestations, linking this mainly to the provision of more or less permanent water on the newly installed seedling.
The system consists of a circular body that houses about 15 liters of water, with a cover in inverted conical form, so that all the water of runoff that monopolizes the cover drain on the interior of the passenger compartment. For cases of extraordinary rainfall, the device has a filling valve, which expels the water around it. The center of the cabin is hollow, allowing the aerial development of two seedlings.
Communication device with the substrate which have been planted new seedlings occurs by capillarity, by a piece of textile cord and a basal cardboard, which allow water, slow and gradual communication of water accumulated in the interior on the substrate which has previously been planted the seedlings.
The system has worked successfully in the Los Monegros desert, where trees planted with Waterboxx have achieved a survival rate of 80-90%, where trees planted without Waterboxx barely reached 5% survival.
The first prototype was made of plastic but the design was quickly changed to make it in recycled cardboard. Waterboxx is an invention of the Dutch Pieter Hoff.
In the last five years more than 55,000 trees have been planted thanks to 20,000 units of Waterboxx, since the box is reusable.