[reizorc]

I really wish they'd make tree planting robots

[suby]

I have to imagine that blanketing an area with seeds dropped from a flying drone would be far more effective than a ground based robot which planted trees. Obviously the success rate of a ground based robot would be far higher, but I think we'd be better off going for quantity over quality.

If that assumption is true, then we already have the tech to do this.

[TeMPOraL]

I recall when HN was discussing dropping seeds from an AC-130 few years ago, someone pointed out that it would be much more cost-effective to just hire locals to do it by hand. The same will probably apply to drone-planters.

[toyg]

Not even "locals" - depending on location, you could bus in (or even fly in) masses of low-paid low-skill workers from somewhere else, like it happens for other agri tasks.

[RandallBrown]

There are a few startups working on this. DroneSeed is the one I'm most familiar with.

[jbob2000]

Trees plant themselves, they've been doing it for millions of years! What we need is an anti-deforesting robot.

[webmaven]

> Trees plant themselves, they've been doing it for millions of years! What we need is an anti-deforesting robot.

Do you mean a robot to guard the forest from loggers, or something else?

[jbob2000]

It was tongue-in-cheek. Because if we'd be allowed to deploy a robot to stop loggers, then we'd also be allowed to just not let the loggers log.

The problem is humans are taking over nature. Planting a couple of trees here and there is pointless if you're going to cut them down again for real estate or farm developments.

[peteradio]

We have tractors already optimized for such things. You want 10000 trees planted in an hour? You had that tech about 60 years ago!

[postingawayonhn]

Depends on the terrain. A lot of forestry land is on hillsides that are unsuitable for farming and are therefore difficult for tractors to access.