Suggestion: Macerating Leaves gives Saplings (but not always)

Name: Umm.... leaves in macerator gives saplings?

Description: Ever cut down a tree with a chainsaw? Well I'm sure you have since that's the point. But if you've cleared the leaves with the chainsaw too, you get all these leaf blocks too (and some saplings and whatever else those leaves drop). If you've got plenty of saplings of that kind of tree, you'd probably find some way to dispose of these leaves: toss in lava, recycle them, make plantballs. If you didn't have enough saplings, you might take advantage of a quirk of the chainsaw and keep placing the leaves and chopping them down, since you'll always get the leaves back plus the occasional sapling.

I propose, why not let a machine do the latter process for you? Just throw the leaves in a Macerator, and it will chop up the leaves until it finds and spits out a sapling. It won't find a sapling in every leaf block; rates should be somewhere between 1 in 20 for ordinary chopping / decay and 1 in 2 to prevent energy profit. If I had to pick a number, I would pick 1 sapling in 5 leaves, but that's subject to balancing of course.

Recipe: Leaves > (macerator) > Saplings (between 2 and 20 leaf blocks per sapling, on average)

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On a similar note...

Name: Tall Grass / Shrub / Fern + Macerator = Seeds

Description: A logical extension of the above suggestion, you also get tall grass (etc.) as items from the chainsaw (why? eh idc). So if you can macerate leaves to get saplings, you should be able to macerate tall grass to get seeds. Clearly it would have to be balanced differently since the energy considerations are different; it could go as high as 1:1 I suppose. Though I guess it's not terribly useful, it is quite logical.

Recipe: Tall Grass > (macerator) > Seeds (at some percentage chance, possibly as high as 1:1)

A bit difficult to drop apple or apple juice or apple sauce from leaves if the main drop is saplings, since the Macerator only has one output slot. But if you macerated apples themselves, I see where you could get that...

And by the time you have a chainsaw and a macerator I think you'll probably have a better food source than apples, too.

I just realized that you get tall grass / shrubs / ferns from the chainsaw/shears as well... I guess one could macerate them into seeds. A mere logical extension, but to tell the truth not terribly useful. I'll add it to my post anyway, though.

The problem with 1 leaf block = 1 sapling is that leaf blocks when crafted into plantballs are treated like reeds, as a 50 heat item, but saplings give double yield as a 100 heat item (they burn twice as long as reeds do), even though leaves can't be burned directly. Though if they could that would solve the piles-of-leaves problems as well.

Quote from GregoriusT

2 Leaves = 1 Sapling is possible, just to say.

Oh yes, definitely, but as I mentioned in the OP that's the high limit on the probability of getting saplings from macerating leaves, otherwise you'll get free energy.