Seed-Ball Slope Revegetation Cuts Work Time 68% in Guru ENT Forest-Road Trials

Guru ENT (구루이엔티), headed by chief executive Shim Jae-yong, said on September 28 that it had completed proof-of-concept trials of a mechanised slope-revegetation method on forest roads in Pyeongchang and Hoengseong, Gangwon Province, using Pelote, a forest-restoration material based on seed balls. Compared with conventional row seeding, working time fell by about 68 percent, and the company said the work could be carried out without any worker climbing onto the slope.

A seed ball is a sowing material made by wrapping seed in soil or similar material. Until now it has been used mainly in environmental campaigns and one-off scattering. Guru ENT reworked the material, the mix, the shape and the production and spreading methods to suit field conditions, and commercialised the result as Pelote, a forest-restoration material that can be used in repeated construction work.

In a comparison carried out on the same section of forest road in Pyeongchang, the conventional row-seeding method took three workers 30 minutes and 54 seconds. The mechanised method using G-PAD and Pelote was finished in 9 minutes and 45 seconds by two people, an excavator operator and a spreading worker. Working time fell by about 68 percent, and labour input measured in man-hours, which combines staff numbers and time, fell by about 79 percent.

Under the conventional method, workers had to climb onto the slope to sow by hand. The mechanised method can be carried out without entering the slope, which the company said also lowers the risk of accidents.

The company has built its own production plant and filed for related intellectual property rights. It combined drone spreading with G-PAD, a construction attachment mounted on an excavator, to complete a mechanised method in which Pelote is spread and then compacted and fixed in place by G-PAD. The drone-based slope-revegetation method has received certification from the Technology Market scheme for small and medium-sized enterprises, and the company is currently going through registration as a procurement item and the procedures for Venture Nara, the state purchasing platform for venture and start-up products.

"What we set out to make was not a seed ball under a new name, but an industrial structure in which seed balls are bought steadily and used repeatedly at forest-restoration sites," Shim said. "The Pyeongchang and Hoengseong sites show that the seed-ball business is moving beyond one-off demonstrations into an actual forest-restoration process."

Guru ENT said it plans to use the experience from the trials to extend the use of Pelote to regional forestry cooperatives and forestry project sites across the country, and to speed up market expansion by entering the public procurement market.