8B rhizome pruning

[Case]

I have R. young in the ground and the current plan for containment is rhizome pruning. When would be the ideal time for this? I was thinking around December? At what tempeture do rhizomes stop moving around? Thank you for any information

Case

[stevelau1911]

I think rhizomes stop growing at around 53F soil temperature, but instead of rhizome pruning I think a better idea would be to let the rhizomes run into some pots, let them shoot in there and then send it over to my address

[ghmerrill]

if you are really worried about the rhizomes moving about, then I would do it once in mid august, which is a bit past now
and a second time in mid to late October (depending on temps) you could do it once in December, but that is awfully late, by then the rhizomes will have grown as much as they are going to for the year, thus taking as much energy from the plant as they can. when you sever them that late, there is going to be a chance that they have enough energy to shoot. doing it more frequently will keep the rhizomes shorter, so you are cutting away smaller portions of material and impacting the main grove less, hopefully letting it put that energy into rhiozmes in another, prefered, direction!

just in case that made no sense, lets say your boundary is 3' way from the main plant, but you wait until December to prune. You could be cutting away 5' of rhizome that went past your boundary. if you prune more often, there might only be 1' of rhizome past it, so less is severed from the main plant. This shorter segment also will have less chance of having mature feeder roots, so will be unlikely to grow on its own.

[needmore]

Gene, I disagree a little bit, I think doing it more often results in more need to keep doing it and more wasted energy for the plant. I'd do it in mid-March in the original posters area, that way you can lift the cut pieces and make more plants if you wish or not, just whack an shoots those may produce if left in ground.

[ghmerrill]

For you and I, more plants are a good thing but I took this from the perspective of someone stuck in suburbia, not wanting to force their neighbor into thinking someone was setting up a re shoot of crouching tiger, hidden dragon.

I don't think we can have a definitive answer on rhizome pruning, since its going to vary by species and climate, but I would bet that december is a bit late in the year, you are probably going to get shoots from the severed portion. Whether that's good or bad is up to the grower

[needmore]

Agreed, I just think that frequent rhizome pruning is like clear cutting culms - the response will be survival modeish with more energy being spent trying to quickly push new rhizomes that will be perhaps smaller but more numerous. Repeat that cycle of pruning and it seems like it could sap energy with no real advantage.

[Case]

I live out in the country and this little grove, or want I want to be a grove I want to keep around 15' diameter.

Thank you for all the information, I am just trying to fiqure out the best way to keep it somewhat in the area that I have in mind by pruning

* What if I came in in the couple of weeks and pruned and then re pruned in March, would that be a good plan? Thanks again.

[philippe smets]

I think rhizomes stop growing at around 53F soil temperature

where did you get that information?

thanks


philippe

[stevelau1911]

I actually did read something that stated that temperature a long time ago so I don't know if it is an average temperature they stop growing or a specific species since each running species may vary by a few degrees. It kind of makes sense so I'll go by it, but this is my way controlling the rhizome growth on my runners. The only way to find out for sure is to measure an advancing tip of a rhizome every day along with the daytime soil temperature to get an idea of when they stop running.

Pull them out until there's enough buds.


Run them through the drainage holes into a pot which will get filled with compost.


This way I don't have to worry about rhizomes running way out of bounds and worry about stepping on new shoots the following year.

[RazinCane]

I believe the temp. when rhizome spread ceases is closer to 40F with no imperical proof other than having read something somewhere.

[stevelau1911]

I guess the only way to find out for sure is to test it out for yourself which I do plan on doing on some bamboo pots in my greenhouse with one of my temperature sensors. It should drop into the 40-50F range for soil temperature some time in December in the greenhouse and I'll just have to look at the temperatures vs either shoot or rhizome growth to see when they actually stop.

The bud on the left side should activate some time in november putting it right in the range to get stalled half-way and since shoots & rhizomes are almost the same thing, I would assume that the same temperature would halt their growth. This should be a good one to observe.