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Yan Zhen Isaac Chik

Industrial Design and Technology (BA Hons)

I wish to create products that serve to regenerate the earth and enable a lifestyle connected to nature.

Industrial Design Major Project

The Inoculate project seeks to give those interested in soil health the tools to explore the microbial world underneath our feet. Inspired by recent developments in organic farming such as no-till, Inoculate asks the question of how we may directly manipulate the soil biology to enhance soil health and thus plant health, providing a viable alternative to chemical fertilizers and preventing the further degradation of the land.

Artificial Fertilizers are costly to the Earth as well as farmer’s wallets. They are extremely inefficient, conventional agriculture uses more than 150 million tonnes of chemical fertilizers per year (mostly NPK). Much of this is wasted, the phosphorus in chemical fertilizers binds to minerals in the soil and becomes unavailable to plants, unless there are micro-organisms present in the soil to convert it. Without a healthy soil biology up to half of Nitrogen inputs are lost, washed into rivers and seas where they can cause algal blooms which suck oxygen out of the water and suffocate other life forms, creating anoxic dead zones. There are over 400 such zones in coastal waters worldwide. The cost of environmental pollution to peoples and governments is significant.

Nutrients in the soil may be unavailable to crops for reasons such as being in the wrong chemical form or being bound up in undecomposed organic matter. There are two groups of fungi of interest to solve this issue: Saprotrophic and mycorrhizal fungi. The former breaks down organic matter into soluble nutrients and the latter forms a symbiotic relationship with plants, trading nutrient and water resources for the carbon produced by plants. Fungi can liberate otherwise unreachable resources in the soil via the action of secreting digestive enzymes and mining through the soil using their fine roots, known as hyphae.
Fungi in soils worldwide represent 13 gigatons worth of sequestered carbon which is equivalent to about 36% of global co2 emissions in 2023.

The potential of fungi in climate change mitigation applications is immense and should be explored thoroughly.

The aim of this product is to unlock the natural potential of soils, boost plant growth and at the same time increase the gardener’s understanding and connection to their soil.

Product Development

Beneficial microbes can be identified and transplanted from one garden plot to the other by capturing a soil sample from the field, growing out the microbes (fungi, bacteria etc) on an agar plate then creating a liquid broth of the microbes and applying that to another plot. The images below show the processes taken to generate a design for 1) a device to capture soil samples in the field, and 2) an incubator to provide optimum conditions to cultivate a variety of soil microbes for the purpose of applying them to the field.

A sample of soil is collected from a patch of soil rich in microbial activity.
The microbes are grown out on an agar plate within a controlled environment.
A liquid culture of the microbes is made for the purpose of applying during watering of plants, inoculating the soil.
A pot trial is set up to determine the effects of the liquid inoculant on ryegrass.
Design development of soil sample collector.
Design development of incubator temperature controller.
Design development of incubator body.
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