Groasis, let's green the world!
Groasis, let's green the world! 
The Groasis waterboxx has an open center in an eight-shape. The advantage of this eight-shape opening compared to the rounded opening in the Groasis Singlebox is that it stimulates assimilation. How does it work?
The waterboxx eight-shape opening must be placed in the east-west direction. While rising in the east the sun is able to shine its light in the length of the eight-shape opening. Through this way the sun is able to shine more light in the opening then compared with a rounded shape. During the day the sun climbs to its highest point. In this position it is in an angle of 90 degrees to the eight-shape opening. In this way the opening gives shade to the plants equal to the rounded opening. In the evening, when the sun goes down in the west, again its light is in the length of the eight-shape enabling to shine more light in it. A compass on the cover helps the planter putting the waterboxx in the right direction.
The eight-shape therefore is an intelligent opening allowing to enter more light when the light emission of the sun is low – in the morning and the evening – and giving shade when the intensity of the sunlight is damaging the plant. In this way the opening prevents damage during the hottest part of the day and stimulates assimilation in the morning and the evening through the entrance of more light compared to a rounded opening.
Look at the images to see how it functions.
The waterboxx doesn’t only stimulate assimilation but also the germination of seed. If you are planning to use seeds or nuts instead of a sapling, the part where the seed is germinating will be shined each day in the morning or the evening by the sun. This will give a good stimulus on the germination while drying out will be prevented through the shadow given by the eight-shape opening during noon.
Another advantage is that the leaves of the sapling or the just germinated seeds, will be hardened by the sun. This prevents the leaves from burning during noon as they become stronger through receiving sunlight in the morning or the evening when its light is not damaging but instead of this is hardening the plant in the same time stimulating assimilation.
But the eight-shape opening has more advantages. It allows the user to make a choice planting 1, 2 or 3 plants with it.
This is interesting for a grower who wants to plant vegetables on very dry places or during draughts, for instance corn. Once the corn has germinated and is around 20 cm high the waterboxx can be taken off and used for the next planting. In this way the grower is able to plant a high number of plants annually with one box at low costs.
In some tests with plants it seems that there exists something like a so called ‘positive competition’ effect. This means that if two plants are growing together on a small place, both start to compete to grow faster than the other. This stimulation of growth can be of significant importance if we plant trees in arid circumstances. Their ‘survival of the fittest’ reaction will probably help them to grow faster and healthier. More tests will help us to find out if this effect really exists, how big the effect is and if we can use it as an instrument to plan trees in deserts and help them survive and grow better.
A grower can choose to plant one bush – for instance fruit producing - and a tall growing tree aside of it producing shadow for the bush and on the longer term, wood. In this way its production will rise and his earnings will increase. The grower has liquidity of money on the short term through his fruit and liquidity on the long term through the production of wood.
As each person is different, also each tree is different. Even vegetatively multiplied trees – clones – have different capacities. Some of the differences influence the yield strongly:
1) the difference of the start after plantingBoth reasons cause a difference in length after the first year. This difference can vary between 10% to 100%. For sure one of the two planted trees is stronger and longer. So if a grower plants for instance 500 trees per hectare, he has the option with the waterboxx to plant 500 x 2 trees. After the first year he can take off the box and in the same time cut the smallest of both trees. In this way he is sure that he has a production that exists of the 500 strongest individuals of the 1000 planted ones. This way of planting can easily cause a higher yield of over 10 to 25% on the longer term.
It is also possible to delay the cutting of the second tree until after the second year. In this way the grower avoids the risk of loss of some trees after the second year. Suppose one of the two trees dies in the second year because it is not helped by the Groasis anymore, then still one survives. This same advantage is also valid in the first year of course. If some of the trees fall out, then still there is a second tree in the waterboxx.
The double planting system therefore gives a higher chance on a close to 100% planting result and a positive mass selection on genetic growth capacity.
This calculation document allows you to calculate that planting a double number of saplings has little effect on the cost side and shows that cutting less or more trees has an extreme effect on the return of investment (RoI)
In most of the wood production plantations there are too many trees planted. This conclusion results from the analysis that trees many times are planted just like farmers sew corn in the beginning of the 19th century. In that period corn was sown by hand divided irregularly on the field. In the beginning of the 20th century corn farmers in the developed countries found that sowing corn on rows stimulated the production to much higher yields. At this moment farmers in developing countries with 12 months of sun and no winter who sow irregular have a yield of around 20 tons per hectare. Farmers in Northern Europe and the United States with 6 months of sun and a winter period who sow on rows with 50 cm (!) distance have a yield of 100 tons per hectare.
How is this possible?
If you make a drawing it becomes very clear. 1 Hectare of corn sown irregular has around 20.000 m2 of leaves receiving sun = the assimilation surface. 1 Hectare of corn sown on rows with a distance of 50 cm has around 30.000 m2 of leaves receiving sun = 50% more assimilation surface.
Trees should therefore be planted on rows and on such a distance that sunlight is able to enter deep into the wood. Not only does it cause a much higher yield, it also gives much more opportunities for other plants to grow and survive on the ground. Everyone knows that modern woods with too high numbers of trees are monocultures with nothing than just one variety, killing most of the other life forms including animals below them. This may develop circumstances where parasites develop, killing the monoculture while no natural enemies exist as they have no plants to live on.
So less trees and planting them on rows have two significant positive effects:
1) More assimilation = higher yield
2) A better ecological system allowing the survival of natural enemies avoiding the dangers as a result of growing monocultures
The conclusion is therefore that planting less trees per hectare and planting them on rows, causes a higher return on investment (RoI)
There is also another interesting phenomenon. If you see a row of individual trees and coincidently instead of one tree, two trees are growing together, you notice that the biomass of the two trees together is higher than trees individually while using the same surface. Noticing this phenomenon AquaPro will carry out tests in the coming years to find out whether the theory that planting two trees together on rows will lead to a higher return on investments than individual trees on rows, is valid.
It is possible that individual trees give a better ‘model’ and that this is necessary to get better possibilities to make beams. But if more biomass is more interesting than beam quality, it is possible that the theory works out well.
The Groasis waterboxx allows the grower to plant one, two or three plants. The advantages of more assimilation, close to 100% planting result, ‘positive mass-selection’ on growth, the choice of planting different numbers per box, etcetera, make it interesting to use the Groasis waterboxx instead of a single box.
