<story><title>Seed-firing drones are planting 40k trees every day to fight deforestation</title><url>https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/05/04/this-australian-start-up-wants-to-fight-deforestation-with-an-army-of-drones</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dymk</author><text>It’s not credible. I know people that work at this kind of company. None of the countermeasures have been successful and the germination rate is less than 1%.</text></item><item><author>xg15</author><text>I mean, they at least claim that solving this problem constitutes the &lt;i&gt;actual&lt;/i&gt; secret sauce of their project:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;The niche really lies in our biotech, which is the support system for the seed once it&amp;#x27;s on the ground,&amp;quot; says Walker.&lt;p&gt;“It protects the seed from different types of wildlife, but also supports the seed once it germinates and really helps deliver all of those nutrients and mineral sources that it needs, along with some probiotics to really boost early-stage growth.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;No idea how credible this is of course.</text></item><item><author>nostromo</author><text>I very much doubt many of these seeds will be successful.&lt;p&gt;They say that it&amp;#x27;s more efficient to use a drone than to manually plant a tree or seed.  Yes, blasting seeds out of a potato cannon would also be much more efficient if the goal is to spread unsuccessful seeds.  If the goal is to get to a mature tree or forest, then I doubt it&amp;#x27;s more efficient at all.&lt;p&gt;Forrests are self-sustaining.  But recreating a clear-cut forrest usually requires a bit more care than just chucking seeds around.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brundozer</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know what the germination rate is when you plant the seeds by hand, but it seems that aerial seeding requires 1.5 to 2 times more seeds. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov&amp;#x2F;references&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;IL&amp;#x2F;AgronomyTechNote21.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov&amp;#x2F;references&amp;#x2F;public&amp;#x2F;IL&amp;#x2F;Agronomy...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;This does not seem excessive in regards of the time it saves.</text></comment>
<story><title>Seed-firing drones are planting 40k trees every day to fight deforestation</title><url>https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/05/04/this-australian-start-up-wants-to-fight-deforestation-with-an-army-of-drones</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dymk</author><text>It’s not credible. I know people that work at this kind of company. None of the countermeasures have been successful and the germination rate is less than 1%.</text></item><item><author>xg15</author><text>I mean, they at least claim that solving this problem constitutes the &lt;i&gt;actual&lt;/i&gt; secret sauce of their project:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;The niche really lies in our biotech, which is the support system for the seed once it&amp;#x27;s on the ground,&amp;quot; says Walker.&lt;p&gt;“It protects the seed from different types of wildlife, but also supports the seed once it germinates and really helps deliver all of those nutrients and mineral sources that it needs, along with some probiotics to really boost early-stage growth.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;No idea how credible this is of course.</text></item><item><author>nostromo</author><text>I very much doubt many of these seeds will be successful.&lt;p&gt;They say that it&amp;#x27;s more efficient to use a drone than to manually plant a tree or seed.  Yes, blasting seeds out of a potato cannon would also be much more efficient if the goal is to spread unsuccessful seeds.  If the goal is to get to a mature tree or forest, then I doubt it&amp;#x27;s more efficient at all.&lt;p&gt;Forrests are self-sustaining.  But recreating a clear-cut forrest usually requires a bit more care than just chucking seeds around.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bostonsre</author><text>They claim 80% germination rate at this company.</text></comment>