

Old Military Planes Could Drop 900,000 Tree-Bombs a Day - ph0rque
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/old-military-planes-drop-900000-tree-bombs-day.php

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mseebach
Hmm, I wasn't under the impression that there was large areas of land in need
of tree-planting. I though most de-forestation was to free the land for
agriculture (in which case you'd probably need to mix the trees with land
mines if they are to have any chance of actually growing)..

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mediaman
The other cause of deforestation is for paper and lumber.

It uses a lot of trees. Visit Washington or Oregon sometime and drive through
the mountains; the earth looks scarred.

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shin_lao
I'm not sure this is correct, I think for the industry to work they have to
replant trees.

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dmm
A bunch of trees is not necessarily a forest.

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mseebach
Well, "tree-bombing" won't help much with that.

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brianbreslin
I would like to see pictures or schematics of these tree bombs. it says they
are metal cones, but that the metal is designed to rot away. i'd think we
could make a corn based plastic that has fertilizer in it or something now,
which would disintegrate and not leave traces of metal everywhere. right?

I think if this had a better name like "Aerial Seeding" rather than tree-
bombing, it would stand a better chance of getting off the ground (pun
intended). Someone should call up lockheed and see what happened to this 11
year old plan.

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arst
Why did you change the title from "could drop" to "to drop"?

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ph0rque
The original article had 'to drop' when I posted... I changed nothing except
to erase the treehugger tag stuff. If any moderators read this, please change
the title to 'could drop'.

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jonhendry
The original story is from 1999. It doesn't seem to have worked out.

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tsalfie
Yeah, seems like a slow-news-day sort of article.

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cynicismrising
Discovery tried this approach in their Project Earth show,
[http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/lab-
books/reforest...](http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/lab-
books/reforestation/reforestation-guide1.html)

Their attempt was not successful. If I recall correctly the main problem was
that it takes more force to embed the new plant in the soil than the plant can
survive.

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electromagnetic
Depending on the seed. They didn't use plant seeds that were particularly
impact resilient. Nuts are extremely impact resilient, using them in these
pods could not only provide re-forestation, but also provide an economic
source.

However, IMO the best thing we could be doing is taking areas of desertified
land and fighting it. Place moisture traps connected to irrigation pipes and
grow grass, just plain old grass to bind nutrients. Spread the grass and in
desert areas you'll be catching dew every morning in the traps and the grass
will itself.

Once you've spread the grass, spread shrubs. The Caragana arborescens is a
miracle plant for these purposes. It traps moisture, it acts as a windbreak
(stopping desertification), it provides a food source (peas), it's fast
growing, it's a dense-spreader. Another benefit is that it can support honey
bees, which again provide food but also could increase fertility of any future
farm plantations.

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gridspy
This geo-engineering reminds me of this article on Darwin's terraforming of
some volcanic islands.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11137903>

It is a really good idea. I wonder how well it would work.

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icegreentea
A trained up tree planter can do between 1500 and 3000 trees a day, day in day
out depending on the terrain. My friend did this for her summer and filled me
with stories that I was too drunk to remember properly. Here's an reddit iama
on the topic.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d8a0t/iama_former_tree...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d8a0t/iama_former_tree_planter_i_have_planted_nearly/)

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Estragon
Yes, but you can't extract money from the military-industrial complex that
way.

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Aaron138
This would kill a human if it hit them. Can't see it ever being used in a non
war situation.

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webuiarchitect
What??

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pshapiro
This is such a great idea. Let's just hope no one on the ground gets hurt!!

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pshapiro
Wow... why so many downvotes? Not that I care about karma.

