The researchers identified 10 drone tree planting companies as well as university research in India as well as tree restoration efforts in New Zealand and Madagascar. In Myanmar, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates, drones have been used to help plant mangrove trees, which can be beneficial, since the trees planted near the equator use more carbon than those who planted elsewhere.
But the researchers said only a handful of companies have successfully shared or researched how the crop flows after being dropped by a drone. They have asked those involved in drone planting to be comfortable with their results. They say their promises will raise billions of dollars a year “false.”
Mikey Mohan is a PhD graduate of UC Berkeley and a paper writer. He thinks the commitment to raising billions of dollars in particular is a marketing ploy by companies looking to raise money from investors. He also said that half of the inscriptions he saw on tree drones related to promises to plant billions of trees.
What matters is the amount of seed that grows into trees after two or three years, he said, not the number of seeds you can fall in a day.
The researchers cited a 2020 study by DroneSeed that found conifer tree prices that survived between zero and 20%, similar to experiments for seed loss from aircraft or helicopters to the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. Like other companies in the field, DroneSeed declined to say which trees have been planted so far. The company did not disclose the names of the customers but said it was working with three of the largest companies in the US, as well as non-profit groups such as Nature Conservancy.
Last month, five-year-old DroneSeed acquired SilvaSeed, a 130-year-old company that is one of the largest forestry donors in the US West Coast. As such, SilvaSeed grows more seedlings per year than the Cal Fire Reforestation Center. The property was managed, DroneSeed’s CEO Grant Canary told WIRED, and that the Climate Action Reserve, which looks at the natural benefits of smoke reduction efforts, now includes the benefits of reforestation.
“What we are seeing is rehabilitating the forest with a carbon certificate and that we can now take over the burnt areas and ensure that there is a source of capital for reforestation,” Canary says.
In an attempt to make the seeds dropped by the drones possible, companies are applying machine learning with graphic design to choose the best place to plant trees and streamline drone pilots. They shelter the seeds in bags made of compounds such as clay and clay and sometimes throw them on the ground. Each of the seed capsules is designed to contain the moisture and nutrients that the plant needs to start.
DroneSeed, for example, combines hot peppers to prevent squirrels or other wild animals from eating its prey, much like a hockey cage. The way grain bags are made varies. Some contain a single seed, but Dendra Systems can carry up to 50 tree seeds, shrubs, and common grass in one capsule.
Asked to refute the allegations, Flash Forest CEO Bryce Jones said the company plans to plant 1 billion trees by 2028.
Dendra Systems, formerly known as Biocarbon Engineering, is one of the oldest well-known companies that uses drones to plant trees. CEO Susan Graham said the company was created and I believe that the main reason people need to reduce inflation is that we are not using enough technology.
“You can tackle the atmosphere, you can tackle life’s stresses, and you can tackle the carbon problem one by one, if you can do it on a larger scale,” he said.
He declined to say how many trees the company had planted. Environmentalists are used to validate the results, he says, and the results of their work are shared separately by clients. It is said that Dendra is now focusing on all areas that can restore rather than the amount of trees planted.
Former Dendra CEO Lauren Fletcher says she came up with the idea of using drones to plant trees in 2008, and was one of the first CEOs to make a billion-dollar promise. He does not think that the drone company has achieved this, but he thinks it is worthwhile as an example of a great deal of thought needed to address the challenges of global environmental recovery.
“The truth is that people understand prices. “They can see, they can touch, they can hear, and it is an easy hell to sell,” he said. “Try to sell microbes in the soil.”
Fletcher is currently working with Dendra Systems founder Irina Fedorenko at a company that wants to plant trees with small drones, especially for those with small farms. Through a partnership with WeRobotics, Flying Forests aims to plant trees and drones in 30 countries. It monitors operations in Kenya, Panama, and Uganda.