For the third visit to the farms I had planned to show the farmers some of my concepts or ideas that I have thought of so far. These concepts were very rough but I felt like it would help in explaining the process of design and help the farmers understand what I have in mind for the product. After I had explained all the sketches and concepts the pages were passed around to the farmers for them to have a closer look at them. I offered them pens to write on the drawings or circle ideas that they liked or didn't like. They were initially reluctant to write anything on the sketches and I feel like at times there was a language barrier but after a while they rather just spoke to me about problems or things they like instead of writing it down.
From their feedback I found that they like the idea of protection from pests and weather a lot as well as the product being portable to sell at markets. I explained the concept of watering seedlings from underneath, which was new to them, and most of the farmers seemed excited about it but some explained that things should not be too complicated, that simpler is better. The issue of ventilation was raised in the discussion. My initial concepts had not included good ventilation in the design and the farmers picked up on that.
After the discussion of initial concepts we decided to test different types of seedling trays. Seedling trays form quite a big part of my product so it is important to find which seedling tray is best suited for the farmers.The range of seedling trays included: the normal and most common black plastic tray, a biodegradable peat tray, a jiffy dehydrated pellet tray, egg cartons and toilet paper rolls.
The test was done with potting soil and the soil from the farms to test if there is a significant difference. The seedling trays were half buried under the ground in a small kraal for protection. The watering process was an interesting thing to observe. Watering seedlings is different to watering normal plants as the are fragile and can be over-water or damaged. The farmers used an old watering jug that was a bit broken and didn't work that well. They had to get the water flowing properly first on a patch of ground before watering the seedlings.
When I returned a week later the seedlings had not grown at all which was quite a disappointment as seedlings should only take 7-10 days to grow. When I first thing I noticed when i saw them was that the ground was dry which is not a good thing as it is important to keep the soil moist at all times. The farmers did inform me that due to the cold weather of that week it was unlikely that they would grow in 7 days as they need heat and at least 6 hrs of sunlight a day.
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