Device corkscrews itself into the ground like a seed [video] | Hacker News Reader

Device corkscrews itself into the ground like a seed [video]

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27 pointsrajnathani8 comments

This is really cool, but surely it's more cost effective to just drop 5 times as many seeds.

Not if the seeds don't survive at all unless they're buried. The video mentions dehydration and "being eaten" as some major reasons why seeds on the surface don't survive. Also, this seems to be an invention aimed at seeding/reforesting large amounts of land at once from airplanes. Using many more seeds than needed may be cost prohibitive for large areas. Shaving up a tree and making a billion of these tiny wooden thingies seems like it could be automated extremely well so they might be very cheap per unit.

How about "shooting" the seeds at some velocity into the ground so they are embedded a few mm into the top soil?

Some seeds can't survive such deceleration.

Can you provide examples of such?

I'm not calling bullshit, I'm honestly curious. I'd like to experiment with them - maybe using a paper or clay "sabot" that encases the seed, then fire it out of a relatively low-pressure pneumatic barrel.

I'm imagining a fixed-wing drone with a downward-facing semi-auto "seed gun" that fires seed "bullets" from a magazine. It sounds like a fun side project that touches on several of my hyperfixations :)

I'm not seed expert, but I think for example acorns or any slightly wet seed will smash if shot at ground. Only dried hard seeds would have a chance.

They're so light that their terminal velocity is very low, so when "shooting" them you'd have to be very close to the ground otherwise they'll decelerate almost immediately, long before they reach it.

Anecdotally, even from right next to the ground I don't think seeds have enough mass to have the kinetic energy at any realistic speed to embed into the soil.

Moving goalposts a bit ...

Can we coat the seeds in a layer of compost / biodegradable fertilizer ... and so make them heavy enough to work like small bullets, and also thereby protect the seed from shattering on impact

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