[HN Gopher] Seed-firing drones are planting 40k trees every day ...
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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.
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