WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Technology and Development Program continues collaborating across program areas and at multiple levels of the agency, exploring ways in which technology can help us be more efficient and effective in accomplishing our mission-critical work.

Last year, employees from the NTDP, Geospatial Technology and Application Center, the Washington Office Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program, the Washington Office Reforestation and Nursery Program, and the Forest Service Coeur d'Alene Nursery conducted a series of UAS data acquisition flights over the approximately 200-acre Coeur d’Alene Nursery grounds. The team’s primary goal was to investigate whether the Forest Service can use UAS and remote sensing technologies to improve efficiency when conducting seedling inventory surveys.

Each year, the six Forest Service nurseries inventory the seedlings in their nursery fields. Nursery managers use these inventory estimates to inform National Forests about the status of their seedling orders. Nursery staff perform inventories manually using small, rectangular plots, physically counting seedlings, measuring heights and using calipers to determine stem size. Inventory activities require crews of two to six people and can take between 3 and 5 weeks to complete. 

Integrating UAS with light detection and ranging, known as LiDAR, and multispectral imaging technologies promises to make measuring nursery seedlings more efficient, accurate and timely, and potentially replaces manual seedling counts. 

To achieve this efficiency, the UAS scans the nursery fields to create a map which then gets converted into data telling the nursery manager how many seedlings there are and how well they are growing (by size and species). With this information, managers can make projections of how many seedlings will be available for the field to order to complete their projects. Increasing efficiencies is essential as the Forest Service Nursery System ramps up seedling production to support the National Reforestation Strategy and implement the REPLANT Act. The Forest Service UAS Program strives to be a world leader in applying UAS for wildland fire and land management applications. The Freefly Alta X UAS is the agency's primary aircraft for wildfire applications. This project is the first major natural resource project using the Alta X to incorporate LiDAR, multispectral and high-resolution sensors. 

Phase II of this project is scheduled to include both conifer and hardwood seedling species at JW Toumey nursery in August 2024.

The mission report for this project can be found on NTDP's Publication website.