INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Wildfires are consuming our forests and grasslands faster than we can replace them
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, artificial intelligence and biological engineering
The problem of disappearing forests is a complex one, but it boils down to a few major factors: climate change, outdated methods and
shrinking budgets (and as you can imagine, all three are related).Forest fires are a natural occurrence, of course
But climate change, monoculture growth, population increases, lack of control burns and other factors have led to these events taking place
not just more often, but more extensively and to more permanent effect.On average, the United States is losing 7 million acres a year
last half century, there have been fewer and fewer resources with which to combat this trend.The most effective and common reforestation
technique for a recently burned woodland is human planters carrying sacks of seedlings and manually selecting and placing them across miles
This back-breaking work is rarely done by anyone for more than a year or two, so labor is scarce and turnover is intense.Even if the labor
was available on tap, the trees might not be
Seedlings take time to grow in nurseries and a major wildfire might necessitate the purchase and planting of millions of new trees
One missed guess could put the whole operation underwater.Meanwhile, if nothing gets planted, invasive weeds move in with a vengeance,
claiming huge areas that were once old growth forests
Lacking the labor and tree inventory to stem this possibility, forest keepers resort to a stopgap measure: use helicopters to drench the
area in herbicides to kill weeds, then saturate it with fast-growing cheatgrass or the like
(The alternative to spraying is, again, the manual approach: machetes.)At least then, in a year, instead of a weedy wasteland, you have a
These pilots are flying at sub-100-foot elevations, performing high-speed maneuvers so that their sprays reach the very edge of burn zones
This is an extremely dangerous occupation: 80 to 100 crashes occur every year in the United States alone.In short, there are more and worse
ecology and logging are familiar with, but perhaps not as well known among technologists
We do tend to stay in areas with cell coverage
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.Ryan
Warner/DroneSeedThese 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
through a few sustainable startup ideas after his last company was acquired, and was told, in his despondency, that he might have to just go
Even at the most sophisticated companies in the world, planters are superheroes that use bags and a shovel to plant trees
We are now able to do both these functions with drones
So the pitch took that form
With the money DroneSeed secured, it has built its modestly sized but highly accomplished team and produced the prototype drones with which
Spero Ventures joining up after the company got some groundwork done.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
Every landscape differs from every other, not just in the shape and size of the area to be treated but the ecology, native species, soil
type and acidity, type of fire or logging that cleared it and so on
So the first and most important task is to gather information.For this, DroneSeed has a special craft equipped with a sophisticated imaging
This first pass is done using waypoints set on satellite imagery.The information collected at this point is really far more detailed than
It produces a 3D map of the vegetation as well as the terrain, allowing the system to identify stumps, roots, bushes, new trees, erosion and
resulting map of the area is not just useful for drone navigation, but for the surgical strikes that are necessary to make this kind of
drone-based operation worth doing in the first place
No doubt there are researchers who would love to have this data as well.Ryan Warner/DroneSeedNow, spraying and planting are very different
The challenge in the first case is to improve efficiency and efficacy, while in the second case is to automate something that requires
considerable intelligence.Spraying is in many ways simpler
Having identified patches of a plant to be eliminated, the drones can calculate a path and expend only as much herbicide is necessary to
kill them, instead of dumping hundreds of gallons indiscriminately on the entire area
A big part of this operation was the creation not only of the drones themselves, but the infrastructure with which to deploy
them.Conservation convoyThe drones themselves are unique, but not alarmingly so
brought her rigorous command of multi-aircraft environments to the company.Ryan Warner/DroneSeedThe drones take off and fly autonomously,
but always under direct observation by the crew
say, a lost positioning signal or bird strike.They fly in patterns calculated ahead of time to be the most efficient, spraying at problem
It also increases logistics costs like gas and lodging if it takes more time and driving.This means the team involves several people, as
Qualified pilots and observers are needed, as well as people familiar with the hardware and software that can maintain and troubleshoot on
Like many other forms of automation, this one brings its own new job opportunities to the table.AI plays Mother NatureThe actual planting
process is deceptively complex.The idea of loading up a drone with seeds and setting it free on a blasted landscape is easy enough to
There are efforts going back decades to essentially load seeds or seedlings into guns and fire them out into the landscape at speeds high
enough to bury them in the dirt: in theory this combines the benefits of manual planting with the scale of carpeting the place with
seeds.But whether it was slapdash placement or the shock of being fired out of a seed gun, this approach never seemed to work.Forestry
Trained humans find perfect spots to put seedlings: in the lee of a log; near but not too near the edge of a stream; on the flattest part of
If you really want a forest to grow, you need optimal placement, perfect conditions and preventative surgical strikes with pesticides.Ryan
the left or right may make all the difference
On the other hand, national forests may want more sparse deployments or specific species in certain locations to curb erosion or establish
The outside is dusted with capsaicin, the chemical that makes spicy food spicy (and also what makes bear spray do what it does)
puck-dispenser which, closely coordinating with the drone, spits one out at the exact moment and speed needed to put it within a few
centimeters of the microsite.All these factors should improve the survival rate of seedlings substantially
square miles and millions of tons of biomass.Proof of lifeDroneSeed has already signed several big contracts for spraying, and planting is
expand its business substantially
the hardware can be assigned to local teams that do the on-site work, producing loci of activity around major forests from which jobs can be
deployed at large or small scales
A set of five or six drones does the work of one helicopter, roughly speaking, so depending on the volume requested by a company or forestry
