Since 2006, researchers working with the Instituto Socioambiental have restored 75 riparian forest sites along a 500km stretch of Mato Grosso, Brazil, using five different approaches, three direct seeding techniques (broadcast, hole and row), seedling planting, and natural regeneration. Fifteen years on, a study published in the Journal of Environmental Management found the results were far from equal. Row-seeding, in particular, pulled dramatically ahead of every other method for storing carbon above ground. Here's how a simple choice in planting technique ended up making such an outsized difference. After 15 years, row-seeded sites had accumulated roughly 155 tonnes of aboveground biomass per hectare, comfortably outpacing broadcast seeding, hole seeding, seedling planting and natural regeneration alike.
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