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The massive task of restoring land denuded by fires, drought or human activity might eventually be helped by swarms of drones that can plant almost 400,000 tree seeds a day.

“There’s an absolutely huge, huge area across Canada in need of … reforestation activities,” Lauren Fletcher, chief executive of England’s BioCarbon Engineering, said Wednesday after a demonstration of his company’s drone equipment.

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“What we could do is make tree planters right now 150 times more effective … Think of it as a smarter, higher-tech shovel.”

The device his team showed off at the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre’s technical development centre south of Ellerslie Road flies about three metres above the ground.

The machine uses pressurized air to fire capsules loaded with seeds and nutrients into the soil twice a second.

Fletcher, whose company has planted about 250 hectares of disturbed land in England, Australia and Myanmar since taking the operation commercial last year, said the goal is to have one team operate a swarm of 10 drones at a location.