FORESTS devastated by fire or illegal logging could soon be replanted from the air, if tests of a technology being developed in the UK prove successful.
C-Questor of Weybridge, Surrey, has developed a technique to drop and plant hundreds of tree seedlings from a helicopter, greatly increasing the speed with which forests can be replanted, and reducing costs. Jeff Burley of C-Questor, and former head of the Oxford Forestry Institute at the University of Oxford, says 75 per cent of seeds scattered from the air are wasted - either because they get eaten, or they are blown onto unsuitable ground.
C-Questor's answer is to drop viable seedlings, not vulnerable seeds, in tough, biodegradable plastic cones. Each one contains soil, water-retaining compounds and a 15-centimetre seedling. When dropped from an altitude of about 7 metres, the rigidity of the cone allows it to bury its nose in the ground, says inventor ...
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