bambooweb.info

For those who have been puzzling over this article:
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/01 ... 241550.htm

Here is an update:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holn ... 250321.htm

And here is the paragraphs of interest:

On the details, one has to remove one year old culm from matured mother culm at 5-10 years growth stage, without damaging both culm and mother culm. The removed culm should be delimbed carefully by leaving growing buds in the nodes.

The culm should then be placed in the raised nursery bed and covered with loose soil and sand mixture for half an inch thickness. After providing adequate shade to the culms with coconut sheaths or rice straw, watering should be done to field capacity.

Watering twice a day should be continued and shoot emergence would be observed after one month from all buds in all nodes of the entire culm. With continuous watering upto 3 months, root emergence could be observed in 2-3 months.

After rooting, the rooted culm should be removed entirely from the soil without damage. To help uprooting the rooted culms without damage, watering should be done.

Each rooted node with shoots should be separated with a small hand saw and the separated cutting can be transferred to polybags.

I'm somewhat leery about the one year old culm to be used for propagation. To me that would mean that a B. oldhamii that grew last Summer would would used cut and used this Summer for propagation material via the culm node. The way my B. oldhamii grow is it sends up shoot in July and August, then it's the next summer before it starts really putting out branches and leaves.

Now I used to cut B. oldhamii culms, a few years old, strip most of the leaves and branches and dig a trench to bury to entire culm. Before I would bury the culm with dirt, I would drill holes in the internodes and fill with water. In a couple of years, I would be digging out young B. oldhamii plants.

I'm still not convinced about the one year old culms. Is that the secret to success?:?: I think most everyone knows that you can have some success with tropical bamboo rooting at the branch complement/node.

If it's that simple and easy to do, then why don't they just cut culms and place them directly in the fields where they want the bamboo to grow?:?: At the start of the monsoon season would be ideal.

I'm still not convinced that the government is telling them some new and revolutionary simple and successful way to propagate tropical bamboos.

I was always told to use at least 2 year old growth when trying to propagate tropical bamboos.

The method described in the article is really nothing more than what has been done for a long time...propagating bamboo via culm cuttings or whole culm burial. I would think that most bamboo farmers would already know this.

Of course, your results may vary with these methods depending on species.

I use one - two year old culms that have gone through a "winter". In other words, if the culms come up now, then they would be ready to go in May/June of next year for certain types that have "new" growth after their first winter.

I have been meaning to try Dendrocalamus Asper "Betung Hitam" by cutting the culm at the base about 75% through and then leaning it over and covering with dirt. I have hear that is one very successful way to do it. I now have enough culms to try that. The problem I seem to have with bamboo that have really large leaves and especially thin culm walls is that they dry out way to soon to see any new growth.

I will build some raised beds to try this technique without keeping the culms attached to the mother.

Keeping the culm attached and leaning it over keeps some moisture going though the culm... Perhaps that is what Roy is achieving by putting holes in the internodes and burying the culm.

Out at my farm, I had a rat or rabbit eat through a 4 month old B. Lako culm about 75% of the way. The culm continued to grow and lived like that for over a year before winds finally got it. I was really surprised that the culm looked very heathy other than the fact that it had a huge chunk taken out at the base.

Boonut,

I've done both ways.

1..cut the culm completely off at the base and the bury the entire culm with the water filled internodes.

2..Mash the culm flat, as close to the base as possible, then the culm will fall over and I will did a trench and bury the still attached culm. This is the surest way to success without any maintenance of the buried culm.

If you are using one year old culms (culms that came up last Summer and you are using them for culm propagation material this Summer) then perhaps that is the reason your success ratio is high. Maybe the old adage to use 2 to 4 year old culms, which has somewhat hardened off, is wrong.

F. A. McClure's book - The Bamboos talks about various methods and the best "age" of bamboos to do cuttings. He quotes one source as saying they did best with one year old cuttings. McClure says he does better with Vittata on older culms. The same quoted source mentioned that they used the lowest part of the culm

I have had very good success with B. Lako by using nodes where there is already a lot of growth. I only do cuttings when there is a lot of energy into branch growth. I only use the best nodes. I also start using nodes around 4 - 5 feet up and stop when the culms are less than 1/2" in diameter. My success with this and the hormones I use produce around 80% plus success. I generally use 1 - 2 year old culms. I don't use older culms. With each 25 foot culm I cut, I generally get about 8 or so new plants that are ready to upsize to 15 gallon pots in 1 year when I do the cuttings in June/July.

The plant I took to your place was one year old. You saw the new shoot coming up on that one.

Bottom Line - it all depends on the health and vigor of the bamboo... how much rain it had recently... time of year for that particular bamboo... thickness of the culm... planting the culm at an angle so that the branch is sticking straight up... and a number of other factors. I tried for two years before I started getting ANY success with Lako. I had two years of 10% or less before I found some of these answers. Then all of a sudden... lots of success.

Excellent info Boonut...thanks for sharing! Is McClure's book worth getting?

I'm curious, what hormones are you using, and how are you using them? Also, are you doing single node culm cuttings, and are you keeping the open portion of the culm filled with water?

I use two products with each soaking. I use Hormodin #2 or #3 depending on how hard I think they will be to propagate. I also add Hi-Yield's Vitamin B1. Hormodin is made by E.C. Geiger out of Harleysville, PA.

If I am using a 5 gallon bucket for putting the cuttings in, then I fill it up about 3/4 of the way and add about 2 tablespoons of Hormodin and a cap full or two of Vitamin B1.

I let them soak for about 30 minutes or more depending on the thickness of the culms. I generally do just single node cuttings.

I did note a new technique for doing harder to propagate culms recently. A vendor used two nodes. They put the bottom node in the soil as they would any other culm node and then cut the node above that right above the next node. This was done with the Parker Giant. The culm nodes are very close together. I think the top node was cut off with no intention of getting it to grow... they just used it to seal the internode.

I do not put water in each internode myself or seal the internode. I do just water every day and try to spray a little in the internode above the node in the pot. Keeping them moist is a key. I think sealing the culm is a good idea... I just don't do it myself.

I don't grow bamboo to sell, so I just have fun with it and experiment. There are a lot of ways of sealing the culm. I am going to move away from B. Lako for a while. I want to do some of the larger leaf bamboos that I have had trouble in the past propagating. I think the secret with them will be in using larger culm nodes... and finding their "prime time" for propagating.

webgator wrote:Excellent info Boonut...thanks for sharing! Is McClure's book worth getting?

The late great Richard Waldron gave me that book. It is a lot of reading and NOT a lot of pictures. It was well worth the read. It is amazing how you can pick up things from that book. Definitely worth whatever it cost.

boonut wrote:
I want to do some of the larger leaf bamboos that I have had trouble in the past propagating. I think the secret with them will be in using larger culm nodes... and finding their "prime time" for propagating.

See you next spring

Thanks again for the additional insight on your method.

As for the book, I may just have to pick up a copy then!