Planting Trees and Adding “Drones”

Nowadays, the sense of technology in planting trees is becoming more and more abundant! On June 30th, the reporter learned from the Provincial Forestry Resources Monitoring Institute that the 2023 aerial seeding afforestation task in our province has been overfulfilled. This year, Henan has increased the promotion and application of drone precision aerial seeding and seed granulation technology, cracked the bottleneck factors that restrict the effectiveness of aerial seeding afforestation, and continuously improved the technological content of aerial seeding afforestation.

Aerial seeding afforestation is the third largest afforestation method besides artificial afforestation and closed mountain afforestation, with advantages such as fast speed, labor saving, low investment, low cost, and no terrain restrictions. In 2023, the total area of aerial seeding areas in the province was 302100 acres, far exceeding the target of 250000 acres set at the beginning of the year, mainly concentrated in the Funiu Mountains and Taihang Mountains. This year, a combination of 2 overhead H125 helicopters and 3 drones was used for construction operations. According to statistics, drone aerial seeding afforestation reached 115000 acres, accounting for 38.1%, setting a new historical high.

In recent years, aerial seeding afforestation in our province has gradually shifted from rarely visited high and distant mountain areas to low and hilly areas with frequent human activities. These places have poor site conditions and difficulties in afforestation, making them difficult to chew on. Zhou Sanqiang, the president of the Provincial Forestry Resources Monitoring Institute, told reporters that compared to helicopters, drones are more mobile and flexible, and are not affected by cloudy, haze, rainfall, and other factors. They can achieve all-weather and full coverage operations in the planting area, and improve the quality and efficiency of afforestation. As of now, our province has achieved a new breakthrough in large-scale and precise drone aerial seeding afforestation with a cumulative operating area of over 200000 acres.

When planting trees and using drones, the seeds also need to wear “protective clothing”. At present, our province has adopted all formulations of bird and mouse repellents, drought resistance and water retention agents for mixing treatment, greatly reducing the harm of birds and mice, and improving seed germination rate, seedling growth and preservation rate. At the same time, we will gradually increase the promotion of seed pelletization by using multi-layer materials such as wheat stone and bentonite in a certain ratio and concentration to pelletize the seeds, reduce the phenomenon of seed “sprouting”, facilitate precise seeding, further solve the afforestation problems in low altitude and arid areas, and break the bottleneck that restricts the effectiveness of aerial seeding afforestation.

Over the past 40 years, aerial seeding afforestation in our province has expanded from Funiu Mountain area to Taihang, Tongbai, and Dabie Mountain areas, from 1 city and 2 counties to 12 cities and 39 counties (districts), and from 1 Chinese pine tree species to 15 tree species such as Pinus massoniana, Platycladus orientalis, Ailanthus altissima, and Pistacia chinensis. As of now, a total of 17.485 million acres of aerial seeding operations have been completed, with a total effective area of 5.346 million acres, making important contributions to the dual growth of forest area and forest volume in Henan.

In the future, the main battlefield of aerial seeding in our province will be concentrated in the rocky desertification areas of Nanyang and various mining restoration and control areas. By combining GPS positioning navigation with drone seeding, we will increase the efforts to accurately implement drone aerial seeding afforestation, gradually applying it to difficult forested areas with relatively small scattered areas in mountainous areas, rocky desertification areas, and mining areas that urgently need to be restored to green. We will play an important role in the scientific greening of our province through drone aerial seeding afforestation On Wednesday, it was emphasized.