dorn

It is a Japanese paper pot transplanter that was demonstrated at the Farm Hack Ithaca Here is another video of it in action... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMSpN0E8_H8

I have been working with some of the folks at the Cornell Soil Health Lab on this. There has been some discussion about how to incorporate low cost indicators into the soil test. There are several options currently being explored. Dan Moebius Clune, who is now working on some of the new indicators for the Cornell soil health test ( http://soilhealth.cals.cornell.edu/ ) just finished his doctorate looking at the exchange of nitrogen for energy that happens at the plant root level. The exchange is facilitated through the microryza community. He was focusing on the bean and corn interaction, but the microryza community is key in other legume non-legume exchanges. I know there is also work on how various cover crops effect this community positively or negatively - for example many of the brasicas like canola and mustard are very hard on microryza community. I certainly agree that understanding these systems are key to water management, root health, and resilient agriculture in general.

Sounds similar to the straw bale raised bed technique. We tried it this year as a trial and it worked really well for some crops. We found that the nitrogen saturation with the high carbon content of the bales is pretty important. We are going to try a bit more on a field scale next year. http://www.notechmagazine.com/2012/12/straw-bale-gardening.html

There has been some discussion about applying some of this same technology to a scratchbuilt cultivating tractor which could incorporate the arduino based ardu-rover autopilot [http://rover.ardupilot.com/](http://rover.ardupilot.com/) - Some previous related forum posts for prone harvesters etc. are here [http://farmhack.org/forums/check-out-finnish-companys-prone-vehicle](http://farmhack.org/forums/check-out-finnish-companys-prone-vehicle) and there was a sketchup started about a universal electric tool carrier platform from the Ithaca Farm Hack which can be found here [http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=22b6ea0fa12dac47d8bcb80d2a176be0](http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=22b6ea0fa12dac47d8bcb80d2a176be0)

It WOULD be great to have a sketchup model of the layout. Enclosed is a link to some models that might be helpful to start. I expect if the 2D plans were posted someone would step up to model it... 1) a sketchup model of the standard shipping container http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=9f562916ca7e43eceb7d6e3cd4b9b31f 2) The link to the Farm hack sketchup model library with components that might be helpful http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/cldetails?mid=cc34dd5b3d6df3291e32d9fc07262782&ct=mdcc