Robotic tools for reversing deforestation, improving biodiversity and forest management

This project is about robotic assisted planting through seed bombs instead of germinated plants, delivered via drone through a regime of several years, utilizing clusters of existing plants to increase the perimeter of productive land. This tools can be used in desertification reversal, deforestation reversal, improving tertiary and secondary forests, and by increasing biodiversity on commercial forestry operations.

• Seed bombs: Also called seed ball, is a packet of diverse local seeds, mixing different species as well as different types of plants, in some form of casing, normally a volcanic clay. This are used in a concept called guerrilla gardening, where activist would find undeveloped land in the city and without permission "bomb" it with floral species to improve urban spaces and attract bird and butterflies. I'm experimenting with 3d printed molds for the clay in triangular shapes, and including discarded barley from my brewery, inoculated with mycorrizal fungi.

• Orchid bullets: Some plant species won't work well under the clay pellet concept known as a seed bomb, so special adaptation will be included for orchids. Instead of hard clay designed to germinate on land and be trowed from aerial drones, they will be shot from a gun close to a paintball gun. It's designed as a sticky mildly nutritional medium that will contain un-germinated orchid seeds, and to be shot at established mature trees. Experimental medium test have started with plantain mash, gelatin, and agar.

• Drone sowing and monitoring: Instead of sowing seed bombs by hand we are experimenting with autonomous routines that will take a drone to GPS coordinates and add a precise packet to the are. This is for experimental use only, as we can track seed bombs almost individually, but more interesting mark seeds for viability, germination rate of tree species in areas and soils.

• 4d forest printing: This is my technique with the premise that just like healthy forests deteriorate in the circular patterns of mycorrizal fungi, they must also be restored over time where in a severely degraded soil only some plants will germinate, some will die during harsh dry seasons and only a few patches will remain green and growing during a full year. This patches will be used next year to grow a perimeter around, and when patches grow big enough biocorridors will be established by using the same idea. Small open patches might be ignored as another premise is that they will be closed in time as insects, birds and mammals return to the improved space.

• Lack of external irrigation of any kind: The natural landscape will be observed and planned acordingly, to start growing green patches on areas where soil moisture is readily available such as surface dry rivers but specially existent river banks. On non-degraded soils, the density of trees with deep roots will be higher to promote cloud generation. This might imply that the technique will be more efficient if applied on contiguous land to maximize cloud coverage over local areas and will make 4d forest printing easier by improving available moisture levels and soil moisture retention.

Drone will also be used to make 3 to 6 months sequence of the selected areas, and use this information to calculate biomass and growth. All data will be uploaded to OpenAerialMap.

Biomass index and growth will be compared with Open Data available after coordination with several local forestry services that have relevant data but not available at the moment to the public or normalized for easy use.

For testing the proposed techniques we are looking for:

• Tertiary forests with mild degradation: The objectives will be to improve biodiversity and coverage, connections with biocorridors
• Partly degraded/old pasture: With partial dry climate they present a challenge in the types of plants used and the model of growth for 4d forest printing. Potential plots are being selected in Esparza (Puntarenas), or Liberia (Guanacaste)
• Completely degraded soil: Such as old mines, old quarries or drought effected.

An initial map of the area will be created with the use of a drone, aerial map uploaded to OpenAerialMap and it's tiles used as grid for analyzing small areas of land and their individual progress.

Severe drought, intensive agronomy and improper soil management have been degrading productive land, specially in the north of Costa Rica.

Current forestry techniques are proving ineffective in this areas as the high temperature of the summer and the lack of humidity and water retention by the soil kill the young immature trees in large numbers, requiring artificial irrigation and more years to grow in the nursery.

Forest 4d printing incorporates pioneer plant species and gradually set up ground cover and mild shade needed for young trees.

Some areas that where used as pasture land, have lost the ability to retain moisture through the seasons so are seen as unfit land, and abandoned. Most of this land is prime material for creating biocorridors. Some has been abandoned for a while and have improved to tertiary forest.

Field work and mapping will determine the quality of the forest by using indicators such as the variety and amount of orchids, mature trees, likens, birds and mammals captured through camera-traps.

Once the overall quality of the area is determined, forest 4d printing will be used to improve the variety of trees gathered from local seeds as well as endangered species of trees. On mature trees orchid and likens bullets be fired by humans via paintball guns or similar.

Monocultive of tree for the wood industry is common. With forest 4d printing a greater biodiversity can be achived, allowing the land to be productive and support wildlife even when trees destined for production are young.

• Local: The surroundings to the test area are surveyed for native species that are quantified to generate a representation of the population to be planted. Seeds should be gathered from local trees and if not available from several mother trees instead of just one or a few. Non-native species are to be avoided and only allow in cases of severe damage which are not a concern in initial tests.

• Provides food to fauna: Flowers for hummingbirds, bats and butterflies; fruits for mammals and reptiles.

• Provides food to human communities: Fruits and vegetables are planted near communities to provide with natural and free food.

• Increase biodiversity: Experiments to include more than seeds are in place with orchid seed trials, mychrorizae, worms, dung beetles and fern spores.

A mix of grasses, moss, pioneer plants and trees will be added. Some families have been researched more than others due to their biodiversity contribution, bio-remediation potential and human value.

From my own orchids plus from local seed banks, I'm conducting research on ways to germinate that don't required the sterile environment that is used for in-vitro cultivation with the downside of lowered germination success but with ease of application.

Some of the experiments so far are of proper seed retrieval and storing, and germination in wood pulps, recycled paper pulps and egg cartons. After the seeds germinate in a fruit compote, young protocorms are moved to paper pulp molds with a form of hydrogel to provide moisture. The paper bottom on the mold is thinner than the rest of the mold, and here we put an organic glue such as cornstarch glue. Other proposed delivery methods include a colloid or gel with the un-germinated seeds.

Orchid research material includes several book of Costa Rican orchids, propagation, cultivation, troubleshooting and of orchids of the World.

After evaluating the security of comercial drones, it is clear we would spend more time looking into ways to secure them so I'm recomending we stay away from proprietary platforms.

Out of the Gonkai scene in Shenzhen are comming out some excelente drone kits based on somewhat industry standards with cheap and quality spare parts, which is very important for long term usage of the drones, so we are currently evaluating S500 drone kits with good results so far.

Due to the long range flights, "plane" type drones might be a better platform for production, but for now we want to develop the tecnology using multi-rotors such as quad copers, due to their ease of use and land, and the hability to hoover while droping seeds, increasing acuracy on seed placement for evaluation porpuses.

I need to study more plant species identification to use them as metrics for forest quality, and also ways to propagate via similar methods to orchid bullets.

Not all plant work well with this methods. A list of them must be compiled and used to invite the community of citizen scientist for different seed bomb methods, and different stages of maturity of the plant.

This beautiful american mammal disperses seeds and naturally takes seed out of exogenous dormancy, fertilized and ready to germinate. Even if robotic methods of seed dispersal get to be extremely efficient and cheap, and new techniques are developed for improved germination of complicated species, tapirs must be used as well with the additional benefits of fertilizing and trampling the ground, and as food for endangered felines.

To the moment I haven't found a good source of information about pioneer plants that are also local to Central America.