Bamboo
HOW TO PLANT BAMBOO
For starters, install some kind of barrier around your property to keep the plant from spreading. Not all species of bamboo run, but if you are planting it in a home garden or another premium space, even clumping species may require a restrictive barrier.
Bamboo is best planted during spring because this gives them a long growing season to take room until winter arrives.
Start off by digging a hole that is twice the width and half the depth of the root ball. We realize that precision isn’t possible, but do your best. Add drainage material and don’t forget to use organic fertilizers. If planting in a dry area set the plant in a bit of a depression. Otherwise, plants in high rainfall areas can be mounded slightly. Also, once planted, water the plants generously with mulch and compost.
HOW TO MAINTAIN A BAMBOO PLANTATION
Maintaining bamboo isn’t very difficult. It just takes a bit of due diligence and regular check-ups to ensure that your bamboo plants are growing strong. Here’s what you’ll need to do:
1. ENSURE YOUR BAMBOO HAS ENOUGH FOOD AND WATER
Your plants must be well-watered for the first two years. While bamboo plants are greedy feeders, one decent change with an all-purpose organic fertilizer should be more than enough to last all spring. However, bamboo don’t like salt, so keep away from seaweed-based fertilizers. If you limit the nutrient intake of a bamboo plantation, you can limit its growth and height.
2. PRUNING
Regularly remove weak, old, and damaged culms. You will find them to be dull in color than the rest of the plant. Just cut them off at the base, closest to the plant. It will help allow more air and light to reach your bamboo, ensuring a healthy, happy bamboo farm.
Source: https://onlymoso.com/growing-maintaining-bamboo-quick-guide/
Bamboo over the years
Bamboo to be grown as a crop needs routine care. For faster growth and larger yields, keep adding organic matter and irrigate in spring, summer, and fall. Add manures, leaves, tree chips…Do not water in cold weather. You don’t want to rot the rhizomes.
If you wish to spread the bamboo to a new area, lay down a three-foot-deep trail of tree chips or hay, or compost from the local Ag Center. The rhizomes will travel the length of the pile. Next spring, bigger shoots will emerge in large numbers from the pile.
First year: Mulch lightly with compost around the rootball of the plants. Mulch amply outside the rootball and in between plants. Use tree chips or hay to keep the soil damp and to control weeds. Do not allow weeds in the bamboo area. I rolled round bales of hay between my bamboo to completely cover the ground.
The second year: Irrigate the entire mulched area as well as the individual plants. Add more mulch. Spot spray weeds. Use as little herbicide as possible. You do not want to kill beneficial microbes including fungi in the soil. I use a two-gallon backpack sprayer and walk the alleyways looking for seedling trees and vines. The weeds are few because of the thick mulch and because I spray the weeds when tiny (seed leaves and perhaps three others). I can weed my three acres with two gallons of herbicide in my backpack sprayer. I buy the concentrate from the farmers’ supply store and it lasts three years!
The third year: Irrigate. Kill weeds. Renew mulch. Thin out small canes from the first year. (If you have livestock, throw thinking into the pasture so they can bite leaves off and eat them.) Tree chips are both mulch and fertilizer for bamboo. Wade Bennett of Rock Ridge Orchards alternated his yearly fertilizer regime. One year, the local horse stables donate horse bedding with its manure. This mixture he spread lavishly all over his 5 acres of bamboo. The next year in August, the local dairy comes with a 4,000-gallon truck and spray guns their manure lagoon onto his bamboo – on leaves, branches, canes, and mulch. It took many truckloads to do the entire 5 acres. (And it smelled for a couple of weeks.) Bamboo can absorb nutrients through its leaves. Wade sprayed manure in August when Western Washington has no rainfall. His bamboo thrived with this routine.
I pile thinned poles on a concrete slab. I rent a chipper several times a year to turn them into mulch which I spread on the bamboo.
The fourth year: irrigate. Kill weeds. Renew mulch. Thin leaning canes, small canes, dead canes, crowded canes. I walk in my alleys among my rows of bamboo with my backpack sprayer to kill weeds. I also use the alleys to assess which canes need removal. It is easy to pile the poles in the alley and then pull them out.
The fifth year: Irrigate. Kill weeds. Renew mulch. Thin canes. Feed leaves to livestock; make bamboo hay. Chip the branched tops to make mulch. Make charcoal from the branchless part of the pole. Sell the charcoal or mix it into the mulch under the bamboo. I will be mixing my charcoal with llama poop from a neighbor and spreading it in my groves. I will document which rows get the charcoal and which do not.
The sixth year: Maintain alleys. Maintenance is the same as Fifth year.
Seventh year: Some varieties will have some shoots to harvest. I harvested a few shoots each from praecox, moso, dulcis, Houzeau, vivax, Shanghai #3, parvifolia. I did not harvest from Meyeri, Tanaka, bambusoides, henon because they were too small. Cook and eat them. Sell most of them. I have mail order customers that love bamboo shoots. I harvest on Monday and mail the shoots in a USPS priority mail Flat Rate large box Monday afternoon. The shoots arrive on Wednesday or Thursday. I repeat the harvest on Wednesday and the boxes arrive Friday or Saturday. Each box weighs 10 plus pounds and sells for $62.
Source: https://www.bamboofarmingusa.com/care-of-bamboo/#page-content
Bamboo Harvesting
Finca Plumeria Prescription
1st Cull: 20% of the entire clump from the inside out
2nd Cull: 20% of the entire clump from the inside out
3rd Cull: 10% of the entire clump from inside out
Interesting fact
The answer to this question is yes, goats are able to eat bamboo. Bamboo is sustainable and nutritious and is regularly used as a form of animal fodder for goats. There are many beneficial vitamins and nutrients in bamboo and can be used as a temporary replacement for a goat’s regular diet of hay.
Bamboo projects
