New startup company BioCarbon is proposing to use drones to plant trees.

BioCarbon was founded by former NASA engineer Lauren Fletcher. Based in the United Kingdom BioCarbon plans to use fixed wing drones to survey areas of land they wish to plant. After the land has been surveyed and fed into a learning algorithm a “planting platform” is designed. This planting platform is then used to target specific “ideal” planting locations. Once the ideal locations have been defined multi-rotor drones will then shoot seed pods at the spots to begin growing a new forest.

This system offers many benefits over normal means of manual planting. It is much faster with the company aiming for a target of one billion trees planted per year. On top of being faster it is also able to reach difficult terrain easily where people would not normally get. This means that not only will it be undisturbed by people but also reaches areas that would not normally be reached. The final major benefit that planting trees with drones offers is that the saplings will be highly calculated. This will offer the greatest potential for the sapling to grow into a full sized tree.

BioCarbon promises that they do not plan to replace humans as the new way to plant trees. Planting trees is a source of enjoyment for many people. BioCarbon sees this project as a future supplement to the human planting and a way to one day save the earth.

What do you think of this idea?
Could you see this being a wide spread use for drones?
Can you think of some areas that this would be useful?
Let us know here at DSDrones what you think!