David Herries from Interpine was able to open the minds of many of the harvesting contractors and forest managers who attended the HarvestTECH 2019 event a couple of weeks ago. The opportunities of using drones operationally in a raft of forestry activities was outlined to those attending.

Already in New Zealand, some 118 foresters have successfully gone through the Interpine training courses and UAV’s are appearing and being used routinely in forests from North to South.

In this clip at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhenTtWaHZU

As part of the presentation, drones are being used to deliver radiata pine seedlings to the planters in some pretty steep terrain. Think of the alternative here – planters carrying and ferrying tree seedlings by hand into those areas that need to be planted – and the opportunities that UAV deliveries could offer in future savings.

Planting crews that they worked with as part of the trial say that they were immediately 30% more efficient. That’s aside from the upside of not putting stress and strain on the workers