Reseeding forests from airplanes, at scale.

The process Alamaro advocates places trees in metal pods that rot on contact with the ground, instead of the low-tech and less sturdy plastic version. The process can be adapted to plant shrubs, and would work best in places with clear, loose soil, such as sub-desert parts of the Middle East, or newly habitable Arctic tundra opened up by global warming. “What is needed is government policy to use old military aircraft” adding that 1000s are in hangars across the globe. Although the original pitch failed, the growing CO2 market is creating new interest, and he hopes to find funding for a large-scale pilot project soon.

2023-07-31: Lots of progress on drones and ingenious ways to ensure the seedlings get into the soil.

Restoring forest worldwide will require a gigantic effort, a challenge made doubly hard by the fact that many sites are inaccessible by road, stopping manual replanting projects in their tracks.
Manual planting is labor-intensive and slow. Drone seeding uses the latest in robotic technology to deliver seeds directly to where they’re needed. Drones can drop seeds along a predefined route, working together in a “swarm” to complete the task with a single human supervisor overseeing the process.
Drone-dropped seed success rates are lower than for manually planted seedlings, but biotech solutions are helping. Specially designed pods encase the seeds in a tailored mix of nutrients to help them thrive. Drones are tech-intensive, and still available mostly in industrialized countries, but could one day help reseed forests worldwide.
Scientists are designing novel approaches to increase the germination rate of seeds dropped by drones. Yao and her team at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a self-burying seed carrier that after dispersal by a drone can gently drill each seed into the soil. Inspired by the structure of seeds from Erodium plants, the carrier requires no battery pack; the burying action is generated by the shape of the materials themselves.

“The coiled body will extend in rain, which creates a downward thrust force that allows the tip to self-bury into the soil”. Burying the seed, rather than leaving it atop the soil, can protect it from the wind, drought or birds.

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