Seeds from the sky
AirSeed Technologies is working with Western Sydney University and the Australian Institute of Botanical Science on a half a million-dollar research project which involves native seed pods being spread across targeted Garden sites using drones.
Drones are widely used for forestry purposes but this project is investigating their use to establish a wide diversity of local Cumberland Plain native plants, which the Western Sydney garden is home to.
More than 52 million hectares of Australia is now considered degraded land.
The Garden’s Curator Manager Michael Elgey said the affected land at Mount Annan was previously a dense forest of the invasive weed African olive.
“After decades of olive invasion there were very few native species remaining,” he said.
“This project is a fantastic opportunity to re-establish the original native Cumberland Plain vegetation and create habitat on these ‘ground zero’ cleared olive sites.
“Seeds have been specially collected from our existing conservation areas at the Garden and we hope to establish Cumberland Plain Woodland and Western Sydney Dry Rainforest communities which are now critically endangered.”
Lead researcher Associate Professor Rachael Gallagher, from Western Sydney University, said due to the state of Australia’s degraded land, we urgently needed scalable solutions which would allow us to restore diverse native vegetation.
“We can’t meet the significant goals of national and global restoration programs by sticking with the status quo,” Dr Gallagher said.
“We urgently need new techniques which reduce seed wastage and are capable of planting lots of species fast which will lead to benefits for both carbon sequestration and biodiversity”.
Project partner investigator at the Australian PlantBank, Dr Peter Cuneo, said this type of direct seeding had the potential to revolutionise native vegetation establishment and ecological restoration in Australia.
“The drones contain pre-formed seed pods which contain seed, nutrients and microbial inoculants that will support seedlings as they germinate from the pellet pods and establish when conditions are right,” Dr Cuneo said.
AirSeed spokesperson Andrew Walker, CEO and Co-Founder, said “the novel fusion between AirSeed’s biotech and drone technology is reshaping the economics of large-scale ecological restoration practices”.
Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Chief Executive Denise Ora said many people didn’t realise the important research being done at the Institute, on everything from tiny seeds to giant trees.
“Whether they are out in the field collecting specimens or undertaking studies in our state-of-the-art laboratories, our scientists are working hard to ensure we find ways to protect and conserve valuable plant species for future generations,” she said.
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Max Thomas
July 25, 2022 at 7:22 pm
Can forests be re-established on cleared and degraded land simply by scattering seeds on nutrient-depleted, desiccated soils with little remaining organic matter, exposed to scorching sun and erosion by wind and water?
As any cropper knows, seeds are a favourite with birds, animals and insects. Seedlings that manage to emerge must compete with vigorous pest plants for space, nutrients and moisture. Dryland salinity results from activities that render the landscape incapable of supporting the original vegetation. Planting therefore needs to be integrated with other measures such as ground water management.
With productive land being more intensively used for food production, it’s unlikely that much of it will be turned over for growing trees. Technology can play an important role, but identification of sites well suited to growing trees cannot redress the complex chain of social, economic and disrupted ecological forces that caused much deforestation.
Anyone who has tried to establish even a small tree plantation knows that weeds, insects, disease, flooding, drought, fire and a host of other vagaries are more than a match for good intentions. Wild grazing animals are ‘farmers’ having a particular dislike for tree seedlings. They will destroy large numbers of young trees very quickly to maintain conditions favourable to grasses.
It takes hundreds of years for a forest to reach a state of climax after many generations of plant succession in response to almost infinitely variable conditions. Forest ecosystem evolution is constant but unpredictable with intricate overlapping systems involving light, the atmosphere, the water and nutrient cycles with organic and inorganic feedback loops of confounding complexity.
Experiments with direct seeding have been carried out with success largely depending on preparation and subsequent management. Realistic trials would need to demonstrate high success rates to justify the enormous seed production/collection, distribution and management effort that would be required to reach the scale envisaged.
Action is urgently needed for the protection and regrowth of forests. However, big ideas are like seeds that require careful nurturing and long-term commitment from governments, but that is where they often fall on barren ground.