Faster ways of planting trees - how about drones?

One of the challenges involved in supporting trees to realize their full potential for sequestering carbon dioxide is the large numbers of trees that are destroyed each year by forest fires. These days in North America, lumber operations are usually run responsibly with planting operations to restore forests after the harvest is taken. But most forest fires occur on public lands with inadequate means to replant after devastation.


So we need to learn how to plant trees faster and cheaper than is possible with conventional methods. This is the kind of situation where one wants to look at what new technologies may have to contribute.

That's just what an enterprising group of Canadians are doing. Lets get around, they are saying, the back-breaking on foot labour and difficult accessibility of forest terrains by using drones. Not the giant military weapons, but the small, inexpensive and increasingly stable, remote controlled aircraft that can fly missions over difficult terrain with ease.

Their company is called Flash Forest and reportedly they have already used their fleet of drones to plant several thousand trees in the testing phase of their project. Now, with increased funding their goal is to plant a billion trees by 2028.

This is a daunting goal, and we still don't have much information on how effective their germinated seed-ball approach will be. How many seed balls generate seedlings that take root? And what is the survival rate of the seedlings after 1, 2 and five years.

Growing healthy trees isn't simple, but there seems to be no question that drone planting is one of the avenues that must be explored.

GET THE WHOLE STORY ==>  https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/canadian-drone-project-to-plant-1-billion-trees/

[Photo: Amazujo, CCL]

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