#droneseed

There is no shortage of news about the potential salvation trees can provide — but can planting trees really reverse the climate crisis? We’re speaking to the experts to find out.

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The oldest tree in Manhattan — at 300 years old — has captured 9 tons of carbon over the span of its life. But the average person living in the U.S. left a carbon footprint of about 16 tons last year alone. So, is it worth planting more and more trees to reverse climate change?

We talk to several experts on the issue: Myron Dewey, a professor, filmmaker, and the founder of Digital Smoke Signal, who film trees on sacred Indigenous land; Grant Canary, the CEO and founder of DroneSeed, which plants seedlings by drone; and Sebastian Africano, the executive director of Trees, Water & People.

Using drones to replant trees after wildfires

DroneSeed is the first company to receive a multi-craft, over-55-pounds unmanned aerial vehicle license from the Federal Aviation Administration. That means its drones can work in swarms of up to five crafts to cover larger areas.

Each drone uses lidar to create a 3D map of an area and a multispectral camera to gather details about its soil and vegetation. From that data, an AI model determines the ideal spot to plant a new tree.

DroneSeed is a Seattle-based startup that aims to combat this growing problem with a modern toolkit that scales: drones, artificial intelligence and biological engineering. And it’s even more complicated than it sounds.

(...)Earlier this year, DroneSeed was awarded the first multi-craft, over-55-pounds unmanned aerial vehicle license ever issued by the FAA. Its custom UAV platforms, equipped with multispectral camera arrays, high-end lidar, six-gallon tanks of herbicide and proprietary seed dispersal mechanisms have been hired by several major forest management companies, with government entities eyeing the service as well.

These drones scout a burned area, mapping it down to as high as centimeter accuracy, including objects and plant species, fumigate it efficiently and autonomously, identify where trees would grow best, then deploy painstakingly designed seed-nutrient packages to those locations. It’s cheaper than people, less wasteful and dangerous than helicopters and smart enough to scale to national forests currently at risk of permanent damage.

If things go as DroneSeed hopes, these drones could be deployed all over the world by trained teams, allowing spraying and planting efforts in nurseries and natural forests to take place exponentially faster and more efficiently than they are today. It’s genuine change-the-world-from-your-garage stuff, which is why this article is so long.

(...)DroneSeed deploys drones in swarms, which means as many as five drones in the air at once — which in turn means they need two trucks and trailers with their boxes, power supplies, ground stations and so on. The company’s VP of operations comes from a military background where managing multiple aircraft onsite was part of the job, and she’s brought her rigorous command of multi-aircraft environments to the company.

That night, a forest flew: DroneSeed is planting trees from the air

Wildfires are consuming our forests and grasslands faster than we can replace them. It’s a vicious cycle of destruction and inadequate restoration rooted, so to speak, in decades of neglect of the institutions and technologies needed to keep these environments healthy.

DroneSeed is a Seattle-based startup that aims to combat this growing problem with a modern toolkit that scales: drones,…

New Post has been published on https://takenews.net/droneseed-raises-money-to-replant-timber-utilizing-drones/

DroneSeed raises money to replant timber utilizing drones

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Seattle-based DroneSeed has raised greater than $5 million in funding for a enterprise that makes use of drones to plant timber and maintain them from the air, in response to paperwork filed this month with the Securities and Trade Fee.

The Nov. 16 submitting says 19 buyers contributed to the funding spherical, with $260,000 of a $5.Three million providing remaining to be bought.

DroneSeed declined to determine the buyers or present additional particulars in regards to the funding.

In an e mail to GeekWire, DroneSeed CEO Grant Canary stated the extent of funding reported within the submitting might change. Extra particulars are anticipated early subsequent 12 months.

Canary and fellow entrepreneur Ryan Mykita based the corporate in 2015 in Beaverton, Ore. DroneSeed was chosen to be a part of the Techstars Seattle startup program final 12 months and moved its base to Seattle.

DroneSeed makes use of sensor-equipped drones to create detailed Three-D maps of logged areas, identifies the perfect “microsites” the place timber will be planted, after which deploys drones to fireplace custom-designed seed capsules. Water, fertilizer and herbicides may also be delivered by way of drones.

The FAA-approved system is designed to conduct reforestation campaigns extra effectively and fewer expensively than the guide course of that’s used at this time. Timber firms and different forest managers pay DroneSeed by the acre as a service.

“Our drones are neat, they usually have the power to ship seeds or spray, however our greatest guess is on our capability to find out best planting websites right down to centimeters, assuring tree survival and development,” Canary advised GeekWire in a Startup Highlight interview final 12 months.

He stated reforestation brings a longer-term payoff as properly, by boosting the forest ecosystem’s capability to absorb carbon dioxide emissions.