[HN Gopher] Seed-firing drones are planting 40k trees every day ... ___________________________________________________________________ Seed-firing drones are planting 40k trees every day to fight deforestation Author : ashitlerferad Score : 122 points Date : 2022-05-06 13:08 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.euronews.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.euronews.com) | comice wrote: | I was interested in how many of the trees they've found to be | viable, but since they've only planted 50,000 and the drones | plant 40,000 a day, they've only been working for 1.25 days so | presumably they have no idea. | joe_guy wrote: | This article is clickbait and lacking in real detail. | | > The company has already planted more than 50,000 trees | ofpiyush wrote: | And firing seeds into the ground doesn't solve anything. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | It 'solves' getting government grants and possibly VC money | on the trope of saving the environment. | reader_x wrote: | They also say, "Each of our drones can plant over 40,000 seed | pods per day" - so putting these numbers together, does this | mean they've so far done <2 days of work? | acchow wrote: | No, it means very few of the seed pods actual become viable | trees. | mcdonje wrote: | There's a big difference between tossing a seed on the ground and | planting a tree. | tpmx wrote: | Planting trees the proper way isn't exactly costly in the first | place (e.g. compared to the complete lifecycle cost of | maintaining and many decades later eventually harvesting a tree - | the planting is a trivial cost). It's a weird problem to tackle, | well, since it isn't really a problem. | more_corn wrote: | They probably read the article "planting a trillion trees would | solve climate change" | mistrial9 wrote: | hmm .. "drones fighting the war on deforestation" .. | | what about Arbor Day ? seed science.. good soil conditions.. | erosion control.. regenerative bio-dynamic ecosystomology ? | | can the point-and-shoot gaming crowd please chime in on how we | can blend the marketing message here, since perhaps we share some | goals? | duxup wrote: | Is the problem of deforestation an issue with seed distribution? | thinkingemote wrote: | Trees left to themselves will each fire off millions of seeds. | The idea that humans know best than nature is why we get into the | mess that we get into. | | Trees have everything within them to spread themselves. | | What's the key thing is people leaving the land alone, (e.g. | industrialists, urban planners and farmers) and that's something | that is very very hard to do. If we can leave the land alone for | nature then we can start to do simple conservation efforts to | give nature a helping hand. Drones aren't that. | Jabbles wrote: | > The company has already planted more than 50,000 trees | | That does sound a lot, but I am not sure how they can justify | their expected rate: | | > Each of our drones can plant over 40,000 seed pods per day | | Their long term goal is in line with the second, not the first: | | > and aims to plant a total of 100 million by the year 2024. | | Well, they only need 3 drones then... 3 * 40k * 365 * 2.5 ~ 1e8 | seltzered_ wrote: | Like others doubting the claims, it's worth noting the thoughts | by professor Forrest Fleischman about "Silicon Valley | businesspeople who are entranced with the idea of tree planting | as a climate solution": | https://twitter.com/ForrestFleisch1/status/14440088233506037... | (2021) | | If you dig around on SER https://www.ser.org/ you can find | documentation on previous failed restoration efforts - my | understanding is these efforts really need an intersection of | community involvement/stakeholdership and education. | acchow wrote: | It seems with the abundance of cheap money since 2008, Silicon | Valley has become very good at just convincing investors to | hand them money | osrec wrote: | Of topic, but the guy has an interestingly apt name given his | job, until you look up the meaning of his surname. I believe | Fleischman translates to butcher, so he's "Forrest Butcher", | which makes it wholly inappropriate given his job! | seltzered_ wrote: | To give some benefit to organizations trying this, airseed does | have a FAQ if you scroll down a bit on | https://airseedtech.com/what-we-do/ . Curious about their | differentiator mentioned in the article: | | ""The niche really lies in our biotech, which is the support | system for the seed once it's on the ground," says Walker. | | "It protects the seed from different types of wildlife, but | also supports the seed once it germinates and really helps | deliver all of those nutrients and mineral sources that it | needs, along with some probiotics to really boost early-stage | growth."" | Nextgrid wrote: | "Drones" "artificial intelligence" "start-up" | | Sounds like a scheme to scam money out of government grants, | bloated charities/aid agencies and/or VCs. I'm surprised | blockchain isn't (yet?) involved. | | Is there any evidence that throwing seeds at the ground is the | bottleneck in fighting deforestation as opposed to for example | the lack of suitable land to plant these in where the trees would | actually be viable? | | As another commenter points out, if seed distribution is the only | bottleneck in fighting deforestation then a potato cannon will | work just as well and will probably come out cheaper (and more | fun!), but then you wouldn't become CEO of a "tech for good", AI- | drone startup. | wang_li wrote: | I'd like to invite you to invest in my startup. We've got | hundreds of strains of trees that will self plant millions of | trees each year. | jjeaff wrote: | Wow, self planting trees, that's brilliant! Exponential | growth! | Nextgrid wrote: | If the trees are self-planting do you have DRM or some other | way to make sure you remain in the loop and guarantee some | MRR? | mirekrusin wrote: | But do you have NFT to sell "your own tree" to people or not? | psadri wrote: | I volunteer with a local organization that plants native trees | (mostly Oak varieties) in the area. | | Over the years they have developed a pretty elaborate system for | planting saplings to maximize their odds of taking root and | maturing into grown trees. | | The process involves digging the right sized hole, placing a | fertilizer packet at the bottom, repacking the dirt around the | plant, protecting the sapling from deer and rodents using a | chicken wire fence and a tall translucent plastic tube that's | supported by a steel rebar driven into the dirt. Then building a | small berm around to capture water and covering it with mulch. | They claim these steps increase odds of survival to 95%+. | | Point being that it might take more than shooting seeds into the | ground to regrow a forest. | telchar wrote: | What happens to the tube and wire? Do these need to be cut away | later to allow the tree to grow beyond a sapling? | psadri wrote: | Yup... once the tree is as tall as the tube (approx 1.2m | high) the tube is removed. | gus_massa wrote: | Interesting anecdote. Do you have photos? | | (Bonus points for a photo with arrows that explain the parts.) | nostromo wrote: | I very much doubt many of these seeds will be successful. | | They say that it's more efficient to use a drone than to manually | plant a tree or seed. Yes, blasting seeds out of a potato cannon | would also be much more efficient if the goal is to spread | unsuccessful seeds. If the goal is to get to a mature tree or | forest, then I doubt it's more efficient at all. | | Forrests are self-sustaining. But recreating a clear-cut forrest | usually requires a bit more care than just chucking seeds around. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | Yeah, I also doubt their claims. Spreading seeds from the air | you're basically spreading bird food. | | Successful trees need the seeds to be planted under the earth. | | Lockheed Martin had a plan to make baby tree missiles to be | dropped from the sky [1] and they'll embed themselves nicely | into the earth thanks to the terminal velocity energy. | | Trouble is, they'll also probably kill all animals in the | forest they happen to impale on their way down. | | [1] https://www.sunnyskyz.com/blog/1467/Planes-Can- | Plant-1-Billi... | adhesive_wombat wrote: | > Spreading seeds from the air you're basically spreading | bird food. Successful trees need the seeds to be planted | under the earth. | | Basically _all_ tree seeds are spread by air, except perhaps | ones that travel though an animal and get "planted" in | droppings. Trees don't usually have seed drills. | | To be fair, the germination rate of the average tree seed is | probably in the millionths, which is why they make so many. | junon wrote: | If you looked into it, you'd see it's not just "spreading | bird food". | Nextgrid wrote: | > Trouble is they'll also probably kill all animals in the | forest they happen to impale on their way down. | | Is this actually that big of a deal? Unless they're literally | carpet-bombing the place I'd expect the collateral damage to | be minimal. | | I guess you can also adjust the schedule of the operation at | times where the most common animals in the target area aren't | active and are unlikely to be out in the line of fire. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | What if people happen to be wondering there during the tree | bombing campaign? | | I doubt human casualties or even injuries are acceptable. | xyzzyz wrote: | Why would you some crazy aerial methods in locations | where humans can casually stroll? The entire point here | is to do it in unreachable places. | m00dy wrote: | First you need to send a sound-wave bomb to scare the | animals on the ground, and then you know what's going to | happen. | [deleted] | ISL wrote: | It's dropping dirt-bullets out of the sky with enough | momentum to penetrate dirt -- probably enough to penetrate | most flesh. | | Air-dropping pinecones and seeds, however, might be | sufficient (and very fast). Cones and seeds are already | designed to fall at/near terminal velocity and later on | yield a tree. | | It'd definitely make me smile to see a Hercules flying | across recently-logged terrain or historically-deforested | offloading tons of seeds that drift to the ground to start | a new life. | causality0 wrote: | _Trouble is, they 'll also probably kill all animals in the | forest they happen to impale on their way down._ | | Those numbers would be very small. The percentage of the area | of a forest that has the body of an animal directly above it | is quite low. | michaelcampbell wrote: | > Spreading seeds from the air you're basically spreading | bird food. | | How do seeds arrive on the ground from trees, naturally? | anyonecancode wrote: | My yard currently has a bunch of maple tree seedlings | sprouting up. At first I didn't know what they were and it | took a lot of googling "what kind of weed is this" to find | out. Since maple trees aren't usually considered "weeds," | it took a while to identify these plants. | | Anyway, there's a lot of them. At first I was hand pulling | them, but after I identified them I realized I could | probably just mow them and, once they've had their | sprouting leaves chopped off, they'll just starve. | | But the relevant point of my story is that I learned that: | a) apparently (some) trees really do just disperse | ridiculous amounts of seedlings, many of which do germinate | and at least begin to grow. b) since I've never seen Maple | trees growing in dense thickets like bamboo, I'm assuming | that the vast majority of seedlings die off (and in fact a | lot of the seedlings are sprouting in clearly terrible | conditions that won't make sense once they're just a tiny | bit larger -- in shallow soil, in deep shade, etc). | | I'm a bit less skeptical that drone-based seeding would | work thanks to this, though have no opinion on if that's an | improvement over humans doing the seeding in terms of | success and efficiency. | nostrademons wrote: | By spreading bird feed. | | Many species of both animals & plants use the "spray and | pray" mechanism of reproduction. Create enough gametes and | by sheer numbers, some of them will eventually turn into | adults. | | That doesn't mean this approach will be successful for | artificial reforestation. The numbers are fairly different | for ensuring that the total number of seeds cast off by a | maple or pine tree over its lifetime results in one | successor tree, vs. trying to recreate a clear-cut forest | from seed stocks delivered by drone. | Tade0 wrote: | You mean in the ground? Squirrels: | | https://blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org/allin/2017/11/12/ | f... | sjtindell wrote: | Excellent point! | bostonsre wrote: | They're not dropping them, they're shooting them into the | ground and you can see them embed in their video. | FrenchDevRemote wrote: | animals are actually very likely to spread seeds further when | they poop | krisoft wrote: | > Spreading seeds from the air you're basically spreading | bird food. | | Aerial seeding is an established practice with quite a | history: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_seeding | | https://www.deseret.com/2000/10/28/19536330/forest- | service-i... | | To quote: "Using a helicopter to broadcast native plant | seeds, conservation officials of Wasatch-Cache National | Forest have begun to rehabilitate parts of the Stansbury | Mountains burned in last summer's wildfires." | | This is an article from 2000. | | It is very widely used to re-seed remote locations which | would be hard or hazardous to approach on foot. | dymk wrote: | It doesn't work for trees. Grasses, yes. | Havoc wrote: | >Spreading seeds from the air you're basically spreading bird | food. | | That is traditionally how seeds spread... | dymk wrote: | At four or five orders of magnitude more than what a fleet | of drones can manage. | junon wrote: | Have you researched at all or are you just dismissing the | entirety of their work? Did you know they plan for an efficacy | rate and over-seed? There's no downside. They've thought about | all of this before. | BigBubbleButt wrote: | Have you researched at all or are you just assuming the | entirety of their claims? Did you know they lie about their | efficacy rate? There's no upside. They've thought about | nothing but how to make money from carbon credits. | xg15 wrote: | I mean, they at least claim that solving this problem | constitutes the _actual_ secret sauce of their project: | | > _" The niche really lies in our biotech, which is the support | system for the seed once it's on the ground," says Walker. | | "It protects the seed from different types of wildlife, but | also supports the seed once it germinates and really helps | deliver all of those nutrients and mineral sources that it | needs, along with some probiotics to really boost early-stage | growth."_ | | No idea how credible this is of course. | dymk wrote: | It's not credible. I know people that work at this kind of | company. None of the countermeasures have been successful and | the germination rate is less than 1%. | na85 wrote: | Even 0.5% of 40000 seeds is 200 trees per day. | dymk wrote: | That's nothing, and in addition to that, it's a huge | waste of seeds (these companies are buying up all the | available seed for certain species of trees, which means | net fewer trees planted). Manually planting already | germinated baby trees is more efficient both in terms of | hours and labor spent and has a higher germination rate. | otikik wrote: | Depending on the seed that might be enough. The same way | just adding another machine to a cloud might be more | economic than employing 2 engineers for a year in order | to make a system more efficient. | | A coffee bean weights 132.5 milligrams. 40k of those is | ~5.3 kgs of beans. Sure it would be inefficient to employ | all of those beans if only 200 of them end up being | viable. But if those "wasted" 5 kg beans saves labour, | then it might make economical sense. And if the | alternative is running some sort of heavier planter | machine, it might end up producing less emissions. | | For the record I have not done real numbers here and my | gut instinct is that the drone thing is a gimmick. I'm | just trying to keep an open mind. | [deleted] | brundozer wrote: | I don't know what the germination rate is when you plant | the seeds by hand, but it seems that aerial seeding | requires 1.5 to 2 times more seeds. https://efotg.sc.egov.u | sda.gov/references/public/IL/Agronomy... | | This does not seem excessive in regards of the time it | saves. | bostonsre wrote: | They claim 80% germination rate at this company. | hemreldop wrote: | relaunched wrote: | Can you site any sources supporting your claim? | dymk wrote: | No, this is hearsay, and I'm only passing on information | I've heard from people that work at companies in this | space and in silviculture (lots of companies are trying | to crack the "plant trees with drones" nut). | [deleted] | hirundo wrote: | If there are chipmunks or squirrels the job is done on arrival. | Those little guys are outrageously industrious at burying | excess seeds and nuts, everywhere they can. I'll betcha order | Rodentia is responsible for planting many times more trees than | Primates. We should bioengineer them for our future teraforming | jobs. | hemreldop wrote: | moltar wrote: | Likewise I doubt it. | | I had a friend who was doing tree planting during the summers | back in the college days. They were planting tree saplings, and | even then many did not survive. It's a numbers game. However, | this is a difficult and expensive solution. | | If they can spread lots of seeds on the cheap and get results | then more power to them! | cbHXBY1D wrote: | I think that's why the Seattle company Droneseed is focusing on | more established saplings: https://droneseed.com/ | l33tbro wrote: | A company I've done work for has an 80 percent germination rate | by shooting seedballs into the dirt. | | They later return to the site via GPS data to monitor and | verify their success. | | https://dronedj.com/2022/01/07/airseed-technologies-works-to... | hosh wrote: | I don't know about a forest, but seed bombing is something that | guerrilla gardners have used to reintroduce native plants back | into blighted urban areas. | | Reforestation projects that I have heard work well, works with | ecological succession. Once clear cut, if grass gets into | there, then that's more difficult because soil ecology has | changed to favor grasses. | | But dumping a bunch of mulch will favor forest soil and | favorable conditions for a forest. Mulch from cut trees usually | go to the landfill, with arborists having to pay for it. | | More fundamental ways are changing the way water flows through | a system. Water just needs to be slowed down enough to | accumulate organic materials. This video is about how the | Arizona canal inadvertently created a water-harvesting | structure that kicked off native wild growth along the bearm: | https://youtu.be/jf8usAesJvo | UncleEntity wrote: | I've read where they study reforestation and it's a whole | process where 'pioneer species' pave the way to 'proper' | forest plants. | | Probably read about it in the Humbolt State Alumni magazine | since they clear-cut the hell out of the redwoods in the '80s | and HSU has* a really good forestry department that studies | these sorts of things. | | * had? They're now a 'polytechnic' so don't know what to call | them anymore -- Cal Poly Humboldt maybe? | dqpb wrote: | How were the first forests made? | Maursault wrote: | > How were the first forests made? | | In a few minutes, you can find out by watching episode 3 of | Life on Earth: The First Forests[1] from time index 20:41, | linked here: | https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2i44t3?start=1241 | | [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0846516/ | dataflow wrote: | > I very much doubt many of these seeds will be successful. | | Isn't that the entire point of using a ton of seeds? It's cheap | and you only need N of them to sprout, so you just try to plant | as many as you need to reach N viable ones. Seems like a weird | way to dismiss the approach. | timeon wrote: | Spray and pray. That is what plants are doing. | colechristensen wrote: | It's fine if they're not, trees produce ridiculous numbers of | seeds per individual and if only a few are successful nature | will take care of the rest. | | The problem is that monoculture forests aren't actually all | that great, better than nothing but not that great either. | Nextgrid wrote: | To me it seems like if you only need a few to be successful | then doing it manually will be just as effective (since | you're doing it manually, your success rate will be much | higher). | | In either case, it doesn't bode well for this startup's | claimed goal. I'm sure their bank account on the other hand | will be fine though. | FrenchDevRemote wrote: | it's probably cheaper/easier to send drones with lots of | seeds over miles of land rather than workers with a few | seeds | patmcc wrote: | Workers don't plant seeds, they plant seedlings (that are | 2-4 years old, depending on species). You get a _much_ | higher survival rate that way. It 's costly, but so far | it's the most efficient way. Maybe drones will change | that eventually, but I doubt it'll do it by firing seeds. | zackees wrote: | One of the ways the elites are generating carbon credits for | pennies on the credit. | civilized wrote: | I don't know if it's elites who are doing it, but greenwashing | is a serious concern. We are too trusting that people claiming | to restore the environment are "good" and can therefore be | trusted to take a truly effective approach, rather than merely | playing a game to maximize profit like a typical capitalist. | zackees wrote: | "the World Economic Forum's (WEF) One Trillion Trees | Initiative, launched last year after Salesforce billionaire | Marc Benioff read the paper on the recommendation of Al Gore, | the former US vice-president. The Time magazine owner told | everyone he could about the research: chief executives, | friends and world leaders, even convincing climate sceptic | Donald Trump to back the WEF initiative with a multibillion | tree commitment." | | Source: | | https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/01/ive- | neve... | dymk wrote: | They're calling them "carbon offsets" now, to avoid future | legal issues. | davelondon wrote: | https://youtu.be/UsvrkVU0Qpw?t=99 | | "What's extremely special about this seed pod is that is carries | over a gram of carbon [...] putting it back into the ground." | | After that statement, all credibility is lost. | cookingrobot wrote: | Surely they're just badly explaining that it has a bit of | "potting soil" to give it a better chance to grow. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-07 23:00 UTC)