A new irrigation product by Israeli company Tal-Ya is the best kind of design—unobtrusive, perfectly functional, and wonderfully simple. Tal-Ya’s plastic trays are placed atop nascent plants or trees, collecting dew and condensation in their grooves and funneling them directly to the seedlings below. The trays also serve additional functions by virtue of their very form: blocking sunlight from the plant’s immediate radius—preventing the growth of weeds— and protecting plants from frost damage.

The environmental benefit of the trays should be substantial when implemented on a large scale: they are fabricated from recycled plastic and are themselves fully recyclable, their weed-prevention [...]