Tree-Planting Drone

“Tree-Planting Drone – The Future of Planting Trees?

Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are small remotely-guided devices used for everything from delivering packages to surveying wildlife populations. BioCarbon Engineering, a British engineering firm believes drones may soon have the potential to plant around one billion trees per year to help counter deforestation across the world.

Their drone tree planting system sends out quadcopters to build high resolution 3D maps of the areas to be reforested. The planting drones then fly out and perform “”precision planting activities”” in those areas, by firing a pregerminated seed pod into the soil with pressurized air, with the pod being encapsulated in a nutrient-rich hydrogel. After planting, the drones will also be used to audit and monitor the reforested sections to assess the recovery of the areas.

Traditional method of planting trees has a high rate of success, as it allows for humans to make the call as to exactly where and how deep to plant the trees. Should tree planting drones be used to plant trees in inaccessible areas where mass deforestation has taken place? Will this be the future of planting trees?”