Seed Bombing Using Drones To Plant Forest in Hilly Areas

Currently, 26 billions trees are cut down every year, while only 15 billions are replanted. One solution is to use drones for quick spreading of seeds to make the tree planting faster and cheaper!

Seed bombing using drones is an interesting concept. Doing it with big aircraft is expensive, and take-offs and landings are a problem.

IISc Bangalore scientists are experimenting with drone seed-bombing, and hope to plant forest in hilly areas. Their first ever drone-seeding trial was held on the banks of river Pinakini in the Gauribidanur area in Karnataka’s Kolar district.

The advantage with drones is that the image can be viewed before dropping the seeds, and can geotag the path.

The drone can carry about 10kg, and will be airborne for about one hour. So it can cover 10,000 acres in about a week.

Subsequently, drone can fly over that area and see the impact of dropping the seeds. To increase the odds of germination, seeds used were wrapped in balls of manure and soil.

This is a great step towards forestation and it will bring a great impact on environment.

In a video made by the company, Biocarbon Engineering explains that the drones would first fly above a selected area, map its level of deforestation and report back its potential for reforestation.

Then, automated planting drones carrying seed pods would fly one to two metres above the ground, following a pre-determined planting pattern, and fire germinated seeds into the soil.

According to the Independent, the drone system is not as good as hand-sowing, but it’s much quicker and less expensive than traditional planting systems.

This technique maybe modified and used by wrapping the balls of seeds mixed in perlite and enclosed in coir / matting of coconut fibre , pre-moistened in water / dipped in growth culture, before loading into canisters onto the drone for dropping.

This will ensure early germination as well as moisture retention. The coconut fibre bag / pouch around the seeds will gradually degrade in soil / act as bio-degradable fertilizing medium.

No chemicals / fertilizers need to be used. dropping using a drone for a seed-drop is a good idea along-with pre-drop n post-drop photos, but providing moisture retention pouches till early germination allows roots to take hold and anchor on an arid slope is a point to consider, as otherwise the entire exercise will see reduced success rates.

In an event, this week, volunteers in Indian state Tamil Nadu, are doing this manually of 30000 seed balls , may cover 60 - 100 acres per day. They can a clue from the above technology...great..!

However, retaining our forests should be right on top of priorities if we dream to weather the climate change challenges and want to leave a livable world for our next generations!

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