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Move Over Johnny Appleseed, The Drones Are Coming

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The following article, Move Over Johnny Appleseed, The Drones Are Coming, was first published on Flag And Cross.

There are few stories as ubiquitous in American folklore as the tale of Johnny Appleseed.

This young man, who had a fondness for fruit and for feeding the world, would travel to and fro, dropping appleseeds along the way.  With luck and patience, these seeds would blossom into apples trees, thus bringing both a bountiful harvest and a source of sustainability to the land on which the young man walked.

And while the tale of Johnny Appleseed is likely no more than a fable, the ideas of reforestation and resource management are still important today…even as technology begins to creep into even these most far flung of activities.

Now, instead of Johnny Appleseed, we have drones whirling about, doing their damnedest impression of the fabled figure.

A tech company called BioCarbon Engineering has been using the flying robots to plant trees on a massive scale. The drones, which were developed by an ex-NASA engineer, are designed to fire off pre-germinated seed pods into the ground.

The drones have been shown to plant trees exponentially faster than locals being forced to plant them by hand, and the method is far cheaper than traditional planting methods.

BioCarbon has been working with conservational nonprofit Worldview International Foundation in order to replant mangrove saplings in Myanmar. Since the drones began their work in September, the saplings have grown to be 20 inches tall, which offers exciting new evidence that the drones can be deployed on a much larger scale.

While many of us rightfully bemoan the encroachment of technology in our everyday world, it’s easy to see that there are at least some instances in which we can be thankful for it.

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