Would you have ever believed that drones could plant tree seeds?
Tree planting is important in parts of the world where natural seeding doesn’t work well. The western U.S. is one of those areas that can benefit from humans planting trees or drones dropping tree seeds.
Almost a third of tree loss in the world is related to wildfires. Annually an area twice the size of Connecticut is burned by wildfires in the western U.S.
Many of these areas are remote and hard to access with conventional hand planting. Some businesses have started experimenting with planting seeds from drones. A person hand planting can plant up to 1,000 seedlings per day. A drone can put down 40,000 seeds in a day.
This may seem like a big difference; however, survival rates are important. The problem with using drones has been that the seeds land on the dry ground and don’t contact enough moisture to germinate. Limited data indicates a survival rate of 1 – 20%. This survival rate can seem low and is of concern due to the lack of seed availability now. But, if the only way to get trees growing on some sites is via drone planting, the 1 – 20% survival is at least something growing on and stabilizing these sites.
Companies are trying different ways to increase the survival of seeds.
- One way is to select sites where the seed is more likely to survive and germinate (sites with more moisture).
- Another is to put the seed in a pod which contains materials to increase survival. Clay and fertilizer supply needed nutrients and moisture to help with survival.
- Red pepper is added to try and keep animals from eating the seed.
- Some seeds are shot with force from the drone to make them sink deeper in the ground on impact.
- One company has attached the seed pod to a wing-like structure that spins the seed pod (like the helicopter maple seeds you may have played with as a kid) so it screws itself into the ground on impact.
- Some seed pods contain grass and brush seed as well as the tree seed. The idea being to create cover that could help shade the tree and increase survival as well as stabilize the soil.
Seed pods can be heavy and so larger drones are needed to carry a decent load of seed pods. Some of the drones weigh 55 pounds and have an 8-foot diameter.
Technology can be exciting, attract funding and create new possibilities for how to solve problems. Right now, drone tree seed planting is in an experimental phase where different methods are being tried and the success rates need to be measured to decide if they make sense. Time will tell if this is a good method to get trees growing on burned-over, insect-ravaged, or recently clear-cut land.
Here in the northeast U.S., natural regeneration predominates. If you are interested in planting trees here is information related to that.
The information for this blog came from several articles, one of which is the following: New Tree Tech: Cutting-edge drones give reforestation a helping hand
