Plant Marking Ring

When growing rubus plants like raspberries or blackberries, these plants develop their fruits on second year shoots. So it is important to distinguish new and old sprouts to not accidentally hurt the fresh, soft shoots, but direct their growth. Then again only on the fresh shoots you want to cut the side shoots, so the plant invests its energy in flowering and producing fruits on the old ones. Likewise it is also very important to identify the old shoots after the winter and remove only those.

To make life easier, I was searching for something to visually separate the shoots on our blackberry plants. So I made these very thin and flexible marking rings, which can be attached and removed easily and (printed in neon colors like Prusa orange) really stand out from the green sea on a trellis. It also holds the shoot to the trellis wire without hurting it, like my strong trellis clips would.

Printed with PETG 0,2mm quality preset with 12 perimeters in Prusament Prusa Orange, this model consists of only three layers and although weighing just 1,3 grams proves to be very strong and durable. With PETG being UV resistant, these straps should be reusable for years.

With a text modifier you could of course also add text on the top layer: