I saw that someone stated that TC plants are seen as inferior plants which may or may not be the case take my Fargesia 'Rufa' I would say that it has done quite well.
This is 3 years from a gallon size plant it is about 4.5 feet tall and more than 6 feet wide
That being said, is a tc plant always considered a tc plant. For example if I were to take a division off of my rufa would it be viewed as a tc plant or are we just referring to a size or stage when we are saying that they are inferior? I have seen some tc plants that definitely inferior to others but I often wonder if given time they will be as big and strong as other plants.
I look forward to hearing commentary on this but will be unable to respond or clarify as I will be out of town for the next 3 days or so.
There is no inferiority complex and if you think so you've been duped by "everything on the Internet is true!" Tissue culture is just another method of propagation. You'll be taking a division so no it will not be considered tissue culture. The mother plant was tissue cultured. The division is from a tissue cultured plant nothing more nothing less. I've been growing and selling them since 2005. What I have experienced is that tissue culture takes the plant all the way back to the seedling stage. The clumpers rapidly size up and usually are 5 gallon sized plants by the end of the 3rd growing season (5 to 6 feet tall from 6 inches tall out of the lab.) On the other hand the runners can take years to run a rhizome just like a seedling it depends on the species when that happens. I don't sell tissue cultured runners for that reason.
What's fascinating to witness each season is nature's variation. Even though they are of the same plant, the exact same organic soil, amount of irrigation and growing conditions some of them will be larger and fuller than others. I don't need to fertilize with the potting soil I use. A very small percentage take another season to be as large but eventually they always get there with time. Tissue culture is time tested and here to stay!
No plant has ever produced thicker culms than the previous year.
They suffer winter damage in very benign conditions.
They shoot every spring as normal but never size up.
These are facts, I'll post a pic if needed- I bought and paid for bamboo plants that should have done exactly what the label said ie- grow. These have failed to grow purely down to the fact they were TC grown- there just can't be any other reason as other traditional bamboos have grown up alongside these, getting bigger and stronger with each year- these TC plants are now not worthy additions to the garden and will be removed and burnt.
I've other TC clumpers that are growing fine, well apart from a full flowering murieliae that was so called 'next generation' so I'm not lumping them all together as crap but as a paying punter the above Phyllostachys are just that.
Bamboo...Please note... This plant is seriously addictive and you may lose interest in other, less rewarding plants!
Mark I don't disagree with you on the runners because that's been my experience as well. What I don't think is fair is for everyone to lump all TC together. If you look at the volume of bamboo TC production since 2004 (at least in the States) the vast majority have been hardy clumpers. They've been excellent performers with few exceptions. I need to show you the 9 foot tall Fargesia robusta Green Screen in my front yard that was TC'd in 2005.
I think by now everyone knows the Fargesia murielae labeling fiasco combined with poor ethics story.
Oregonbamboo wrote:I think by now everyone knows the Fargesia murielae labeling fiasco combined with poor ethics story.
I don't, but would like to hear it. I don't need to know who specifically is involved, but would like to hear the story.
I had dinner with Jan Oprins last year on his way through Portland and he clarified the rumors and inuendo on how it all happened. No doubt mistakes were made but it wasn't an issue with tissue cultured plants. Unfortunately it would be bad form for me to publish the story here.
To get back on topic, my 'Rufa' is TC and although it seems to be healthy, it's not getting taller, and is quite floppy (floppier than it should be). It may be because it gets a lot of sun though. I'm going to take a division this year and plant it in a shadier spot to compare.
Location: We are less than one hour south of downtown Houston. We are located in Wild Peach, Texas located half way between Brazoria and West Columbia. Exit hwy 36 onto County Road 354. Take County Road 353 west . Go approximately 2.4 miles. We are on the left.
There are differences in outcome on different plants even from the same lab during the same time period. I have TC Buddha Belly that grew out fine. I have TC Oldhamii that never will. I got in on some of the first TC bamboo coming into TX many years back. The Oldhamii grew and was easy to keep in a small grassy stage that made it very easy to propagate by division. 10,000 plus of these things (TC Oldhamii) came here initially and have been in production (division) in many sites ever since. Early on people discovered that the plant was wimpy, had no cold hardiness and required much fertilization to perform. We had samples sent to A&M to prove out any virus or such and all came back clean. I found a way to get them to revert from the grassy stage and was one of the first to plant and grow out some of these TC Oldhamii here. They never reach anywhere near the height or diameter of Oldhamii from any other source. The large leaves cause them to arch as the culms can't support the weight in an erect manner. This isn't speculation or observation on a few dozen or few 100 plants. This is on 1000's. I did not attempt in any meaningful numbers of any of the other TC bamboo that came out at that time (all too tropical) to see how it faired compared to non-TC. Different labs, different methods can have differing results.
Location: We are less than one hour south of downtown Houston. We are located in Wild Peach, Texas located half way between Brazoria and West Columbia. Exit hwy 36 onto County Road 354. Take County Road 353 west . Go approximately 2.4 miles. We are on the left.
I forgot to post this. Even after growing and dividing these TC Oldhamii many times over we still refer to them as TC and they are in fact different than the others. The divisions many generations down behave just as badly as the first. Not all TC protocols are the same. Something went wrong with these. I quit propagating these Oldhamii a few years back and only work on propagating from good stock. I still have a few in stock to show off the difference.
You would think that these would "grow out of it", but they don't. With that said many, many plants are propagated by TC, not just bamboo. Not all TC plants are good, but I don't believe all are bad either. You have to take it case by case. What I would not do is buy the ones that are proven inferior, but keep an open mind on the others until tested out and proven one way or another.
A few years ago I made the mistake of dividing an old section of Fargesia robusta culms leftover from a clump that I had used to divide from. I was being greedy. They put up tiny shoots the next season basically reverting the division back to seedling stage. Some of those divisions took years to get back to the original larger culm size but some never did. I eventually gave up on them.
One thing you can count on is variation in nature no matter how hard we try to industrialize it.
Noticed a worth while observation in my yard over the winter and wanted to add more photo evidence against a tissue cultured bamboo.
The tale of 2 F. sp. 'Scabrida':
A 5 gallon TC did not handle our snow nor cold temps and is defoliating
Meanwhile a 1 gallon holds its leaves and pushes out from the snow.
The TC cost almost has much as the traditional division yet even though it is larger and has more root mass it pales in comparison. I cannot stress how disapointed I am in the TC product, identical species, same location, yet due to different propagation techniques one looks healthy and the other looks dead.
Do they both have the same exposure too? It looks like the 1 gal. non-TC is next to a fence -- what about the 5-gal. TC? Exposure and microclimate may be a factor here too.
I've never had a cold-hardiness issue with my TC rufa. I just did a walkthrough and both of my rufas have comparable leaf damage: very minimal compared to most of my other bamboos.
