The WaterBoxx needs just 3 inches of rainfall per year to deliver a slow and steady supply of water to plants or trees
By Debra Kahn and Climatewire
PLANT PRESERVER: The Waterboxx, shown here with inventor Pieter Hoff, is a low cost device that can help plants to survive in drought-ridden areas.
©AQUAPRO
From the land of dams and canals comes a new device billed as the savior of agriculture and reforestation in drought-plagued areas.
The "Waterboxx" is the brainchild of Dutch businessman Pieter Hoff, who sold his lily-growing operation in 2003 to focus on water. Then he started tinkering with a polypropylene box, about the size of a laundry basket. It has a fluted lid and a wick extending from the bottom. The plant sits in a cylindrical opening in the center that goes all the way through the box.
The mechanism is almost suspiciously simple. The box collects rainwater and condensation and funnels it to the plant. In spring 2009, Hoff partnered with Eduard Zanen, co-founder of the stroller company Bugaboo International, to finance experiments with the device that are now under way in Kenya, Morocco, Spain and the United States. Eight hundred of the boxes have been installed in Joshua Tree National Park, where they are nourishing native mesquite and saltbush plants.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=could-a-water-box-help-reforest-the-world&sc=CAT_ENGYSUS_20100701
By Debra Kahn and Climatewire
PLANT PRESERVER: The Waterboxx, shown here with inventor Pieter Hoff, is a low cost device that can help plants to survive in drought-ridden areas.
©AQUAPRO
From the land of dams and canals comes a new device billed as the savior of agriculture and reforestation in drought-plagued areas.
The "Waterboxx" is the brainchild of Dutch businessman Pieter Hoff, who sold his lily-growing operation in 2003 to focus on water. Then he started tinkering with a polypropylene box, about the size of a laundry basket. It has a fluted lid and a wick extending from the bottom. The plant sits in a cylindrical opening in the center that goes all the way through the box.
The mechanism is almost suspiciously simple. The box collects rainwater and condensation and funnels it to the plant. In spring 2009, Hoff partnered with Eduard Zanen, co-founder of the stroller company Bugaboo International, to finance experiments with the device that are now under way in Kenya, Morocco, Spain and the United States. Eight hundred of the boxes have been installed in Joshua Tree National Park, where they are nourishing native mesquite and saltbush plants.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=could-a-water-box-help-reforest-the-world&sc=CAT_ENGYSUS_20100701
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