
DroneSeed – Re-planting the future with drones - zatkin
http://droneseed.co/
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grantcanary
Scattering seeds definitely has a high cost. Just scattering from 1000 feet
and hoping for the best has been reviewed again and again since the 70's. Its
too expensive due to losses from seeds that landed on rocks and in creeks.

Where this technology advances is in using drones to fly to pre-selected
coordinates where seeds will survive and fire a seed into the ground (such as
next to a stump). Called micro-sites, the combination of drones and new
lightweight sensors have made this possible only in the last few years.

While we love tree planters working with shovels, we see huge potential in
lowering the cost of replanting trees with technology. Imported work gangs
with shovels dont do a lot to reduce labor costs. This has big impacts for
replanting and reducing the carbon load thats been put in the atmosphere
already.

Im happy to answer questions and will check back here or email us on our site.
We're always looking for developers and people interested in the data science
that micro-siting requires.

Grant, CEO DroneSeed

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loganu
Is droneseed related to BiocarbonEngineering? Looks like the same premise,
technology, etc.

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ph0rque
Was just going to mention them.
[http://www.biocarbonengineering.com/](http://www.biocarbonengineering.com/)

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doomspork
This has always been something I thought would be interesting to pursue.
There's quite a bit of science involved when replanting a forest. It's much
more than just scattering seeds.

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rubyfan
What could possibly go wrong?

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whorleater
An analogous to that question would be what could possibly go right with this?
This project has incredible potential, but also incredibly complex issues it
needs to solve in multitudes as well.

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andygates
From the blurb, "However, the economics of planting a LOT more trees were
terrible. He was horrified at how technologically-lagged the forest re-
planting industry was compared to logging or…well…any other industry. The lack
of technology meant replanting was extremely expensive. Planters had to be
imported to remote regions for temporary work, and were given nothing but the
same rudimentary tools of the 1940’s to plant: Just a bag and shovel."

...and they seem to have at least identified the obvious issues. Drones don't
care about terrain, so things that really slow down human workers - like
swampy ground or alpine terrain - aren't a problem. I can see great potential
in applying the system to wetland forest.

