Seedballs
SETs enabled the 100-acre family farm of 1950 to become the million-acre megafarm of 2023:
SETs revolutionized agriculture.
Pioneering SETs for ecological restoration: the basics
Each seed is wrapped in a multi-layer coating of optimized nutrients and hydrogel for moisture-retention as well as disease-resistant inoculants to protect the seeds from their greatest threats: pathogens, predators, and dehydration.
This structure also houses the radicle as it emerges from the seed and begins growing inside the ball, providing critical protection at a vulnerable stage.
These pelleting techniques also create a uniformity in size which allow us to mass disperse them from drones in pre-programmed planting patterns by the thousands, millions, or tens of millions.
Priming
Extensive testing enables us to establish the germination profile of the seed. Advanced priming techniques then enable us to regulate latency – i.e., how much time and what conditions are required for the root to emerge. Each species is unique and to germinate, seeds need to breathe and drink at the right time and in the right amount. Priming is the science of pausing these metabolic processes just before root emergence so that the seeds are poised, at the first touch of rain, to sprout.
Inoculants
We also inoculate seeds with a film coating of beneficial microorganisms and fungi to integrate the emerging root with the living soil, where complex exchanges and communication networks enhance growth. These microorganisms (BMOs) can be gathered directly from soil at the restoration site and reproduced at our SRF facility. This process ensures no invasive microbial or fungal species are introduced into the soil and integrates the plants with their ecosystem from the start.
Stratification, scarification, and additional enhancement strategies can all be tailored to the specific variables of the species, the soil, and the micro-climate to achieve the highest germination rate possible.
Ecoballs: the key to large-scale restoration
Ecoballs contain the seeds of an entire ecosystem from grasses, shrubs, and understory up to the canopy of the dominant species. An ecoball may have anywhere from 10-100 seeds inside it. Every seed in an ecoball is native to that ecosystem and works symbiotically with the other seeds, the fungi, and the microbial life in the soil to regenerate entire ecosystems.
Ecoballs: the key to large-scale restoration
Ecoballs contain the seeds of an entire ecosystem from grasses, shrubs, and understory up to the canopy of the dominant species. An ecoball may have anywhere from 10-100 seeds inside it. Every seed in an ecoball is native to that ecosystem and works symbiotically with the other seeds, the fungi, and the microbial life in the soil to regenerate entire ecosystems.
Ecoballs: the key to large-scale restoration
Ecoballs contain the seeds of an entire ecosystem from grasses, shrubs, and understory up to the canopy of the dominant species. An ecoball may have anywhere from 10-100 seeds inside it. Every seed in an ecoball is native to that ecosystem and works symbiotically with the other seeds, the fungi, and the microbial life in the soil to regenerate entire ecosystems.
A word about Fungi
Fungi often live inside the plant and are more a part of the plant than roots, branches, or leaves. It also functions as an essential trading partner whose body extends from inside the plant deep into the soil, delivering water and minerals to the plant in return for sugars and carbohydrates created by photosynthesis brought down from the leaves. Fungi also function as a communication network for the ecosystem as a whole and deliver infochemicals – messages – in real time.
New View:
Plant-fungal associations are more than associations. Fungi often live inside the tissue and cell interiors so densely that it may be more accurate to say fungi and plants “inter-are.” Often there is more fungus in a plant than there is plant (try remembering that when you look at your garden or nearby park).
The concept of nested biomes exists throughout the natural world. Think of our own body: our gut microbiome is nested inside us, and neither can live without the other. In the natural world the inseparability of nested biomes are the norm. Inter-being does not only keep natural systems functioning; it is how natural systems function optimally. We inter-are with our environment just as our gut microbiome inter-is with us. All living beings and natural systems on Earth have co-evolved into nested biomes interbeing with each other.
Interbeing: how everything really (inter)is.
