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Occasionally someone posts a question about killing a patch of running bamboo that has gotten out of control. I recall Roy's play-by-play updates a few years ago as he tried to control Ph. nigra with just mowing. As I recall the battle was eventually won but only after a year or more.

I read an interesting article today, Controlling Bamboo (Phyllostachys spp.) by Mark A. Czarnota and Jeffrey Derr in the January-March 2007 Weed Technology, issue 21, pages 80-83.

They did both field and greenhouse trials. Ten weeks after the application of a herbicide to Ph. rubromarginata in the field there was 90% control with glyphosate vs 75% with imazapyr, the two most effective herbicides trialed. The other herbicide tried in the field trials, dichlobenil, was not very effective. After 58 weeks from the application of the herbicides, the situation had reversed with 77% control from glyphosate and 99% control with imazapyr. After 161 weeks the bamboo was coming back with 40% control from glyphosate and 85% control with imazapyr. I expect the difference in results between these is probably due in part to imazapyr having a half-life of about 17 months while glyphosate has a half-life in the soil of 1-2 months. The conclusion of the article was that more than one application of these herbicides was required to totally control Ph. rubro. Glufosinate was better than glyphosate in the greenhouse trials with Ph. aurea but imazapyr was not included. Other herbicides trialed were fenoxaprop, fluazifop. clethodim, sethoxydim, MSMA, quinclorac, and dithiopyr. The authors also suggested that multiple applications of glyphosate might be preferred to avoid potential damage to other near by plants from imazapyr.

Mike near Brenham TX

It seems like the title here should be: "Killing Running Bamboo with Herbicides"

Mowing is very effective in controlling/containing running bamboo as long as you can mow to the end of the rhizomes.

Michael

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reading. I don't have any running bamboo to control, but I know that Jim Phillips and Harry Simmons in Austin are doing similar tests.

I have problems with weeds around my boo, fences, etc.. I can definitely use the research.

On another note... I purchased Semiarundinaria Okuboi about 4 years ago and planted it. It looked pretty dead for a long time and like most running bamboo down here got even smaller... this one never got more than 2 feet tall. This year, it is popping up everywhere. I planted a Dendrocalamus Minor near it because I thought it was gone completely.

I still have some Henon and Okuboi if anyone wants to come and dig it up.

Michael wrote:It seems like the title here should be: "Killing Running Bamboo with Herbicides"

Mowing is very effective in controlling/containing running bamboo as long as you can mow to the end of the rhizomes.

Michael

Michael,

I agree, in the article control and kill mean the same thing for the specific area being treated. The field work was done on approximately a 10,000 square foot area of Ph. rubromarginata at the Bamboo Farm and Coastal Gardens in Savannah, GA, and they were mainly seeing if they could control (or kill) the various trial plots with one application of different herbicides. As noted, they could not. They initially mowed whole area with a three-point hitch, power-take-off driven, rotary-cut mower before starting the trials.

As you note, mowing can also be used (in areas where you can mow and set the mower low enough) to eventually control or kill bamboo, and as I think Roy showed earlier, but it takes significantly more than one mowing also. The pictures of the control (non-treated) plot show a fairly dense short regrowth after mowing.

Mike near Brenham TX

Actually a lot of running bamboo (99% P. aurea) along the highway right-of-way is kept in check during regular mowing of the right-of ways. With out a lot of small reshoots popping up.

Now if you mow over a grove, you will have a large reshoot. It happened to my P. nigra I have as a noise barrier in front of my house almost two years ago. The contracted mowers just mowed it down. I put up 2? pipe with large chunks of concrete at the bottom to protect them and it is coming back now, but not out side of the barrier. But regular mowing on the outside of the grove will keep it in place, if you can mow to the ends of the rhizomes.

Michael

Michael wrote:..... Mowing is very effective in controlling/containing running bamboo as long as you can mow to the end of the rhizomes.

And Just where is the end of the Rhizome???

I have several groves of Phyllostachys Aureosulcata All but one is bounded on one side by a gravel road and I am informed that it will not cross that due to the infertility and regular vehicle traffic and grading. All other boundaries are mowed grass. but If I mow the grass but do not dig up the rhizomes, how far will they run ???

At the present I have been regularly cutting the rhizomes running into the lawn as I have been digging up the shoots roots & rhizomes for the purpose of extending my groves as a privacy/sound/dust/wind barrier. However, is there a typical limit to how far the rhizomes will extend themselves beyond the boundary of the grove?

Also is there a time of the year when the rhizomes do not extend themselves. The closest thing that I would need to protect is a sewage lagoon, and while I know that the roots will not go into water, during the dry hot time of the summer the sewage lagoon can be come a dry mudflat as the water evaporates faster than it is supplied. If the bamboo invades the lagoon I would have to take action to cut it back. Needless to say the rich "night soil" of the lagoon would certainly be a prize conquest for the bamboo. Then again, when the lagoon has a typical water level, I suppose it would kill back any bamboo that had invaded it, wouldn't it?

Good questions dgoddard I wonder the same thing and I have a bamboo I am experimenting this with it is a yellow groove that I intend to keep in a circle in my yard mowed 20-30 feet at least most of the way around except one area were it is only 10 or so. If I mow to the end of the rhizomes and only allow so many culms will it keep growing past where the end of rhizomes where last year? I do not want to use herbicides for anything inless they are all natural.

zxylene wrote:.....a bamboo ..... it is a yellow groove that I intend to keep in a circle in my yard mowed 20-30 feet at least most of the way around except one area were it is only 10

So what is 10 feet away from that side? If it is a flower bed or shrubbery or a foundation wall there could be problems. You will note elsewhere on this site some discussion of a Rhizome Ripper which is some sort of blade pulled through the earth to break off rhizomes.

The two things I have been told that bamboo can not encroach upon is a gravel road currently in use, and water. I can vouch for the water as last year I planted some bamboo in the spring where I thought it was above high water but then the water level in the pond came up and flooded it and killed it all. The explanation is that the bamboo roots are hollow which provides air that they need. When immersed for a few days the tube fills up with water and that kills the root. In my case the stems turned mushy and fell over.

zxylene wrote:If I mow to the end of the rhizomes and only allow so many culms will it keep growing past where the end of rhizomes where last year?

That is essentially what I am wondering too. However You can probably stop that by cutting the rhizome. The shoots will tell you where the rhizome is and you can then cut it. I use my "Dig Bar" (see picture and description at: http://www.bambooweb.info/bb/viewtopic. ... f7f7c04721 --- first post 5th paragraph and picture) I can usually tell when I have cut the rhizome because I can feel and hear the pop and the cut ends of the rhizome against the blade require me to wiggle it free.

With the rhizome cut off from the grove and the culms mown off it seems to lack the energy to presist. I doubt it will extend itself unless it can get some culms up to give it energy, but I admit I am not sure that will always work. When I was first establishing my grove from clumps I dug up from a donor grove, I ended up with a few pieces of rhizome that were 12 to 18 inches long with nothing on them but a few rootlets. So I dug holes and threw them in, most of them produced a few spindly culms that year and the next year some substantial culms. Had I broken those culms off, it is concealable that it would have killed them. If in doubt once you have cut the rhizome and know where the cut end is you could always proceed to uproot it. I think this may be a question that some of the more experienced here might be able to help us with.

The ten foot section is black bamboo and woods, trees etc. I don't want it to take over the black bamboo. I know for sure mowing will take care of it on the other areas and I usually cut rhizomes which will then either put up tiny shoots or they might do nothing until shooting the next spring but they are very easy to mow. The question got me thinking what if you didn't cut the rhizome. But kept it mowed at whatever you detrmined the line would be how far past that line would it continue under ground? would twenty years have it showing up 100 feet away? Odiviously if you were mowing you would see shoots and where there are shoots there are rhizomes but I always cut the rhizomes when I see shoots. Can I be more lazy on areas where the span is so great 20-30 feet or will year one have shoots 1 foot past the line, year two they are popping up 10 feet past the line, year three they are popping up 18 feet past the line ? And when they start getting to 18 feet I start to worry and cut all the rhizomes I can?

Since i dont know the answer I will do what I do now which is if I see a shoot past the line I stomp on the shovel inline with the shoot and either take a division and let the shoot grow into a nice division or mow it. This is a great way to get mailable divisions.

While the multiplier varies from species to species and growing conditions, the general rule of thumb is that the rhizomes only extend about 1.5 times the height of the tallest culm from the grove. They don't even seem to extend that far from my Yellow Groove. My grove is controlled by mowing and no digging, except for reasons other than control.
Also, if the rhizome has no above ground growth to support it it dies and quickly rots.

foxd wrote:.....
#1 the general rule of thumb is that the rhizomes only extend about 1.5 times the height of the tallest culm from the grove.
#2 They don't even seem to extend that far from my Yellow Groove.
#3 Also, if the rhizome has no above ground growth to support it it dies and quickly rots.

(enumeration added).

Those are good things to know. My yellow groove should get a maximum culm of about 30 feet this year or next, but so far your #2 observation seems to be holding true, and my experience suggests that #3 is also accurate. Rule #1 I suppose might be credible in cases of ideal conditions for rhizome growth.

Maybe we should seek a Guinness Book of Records category if anyone cares to measure their world class Rhizomes.

dgoddard wrote:Maybe we should seek a Guinness Book of Records category if anyone cares to measure their world class Rhizomes.

That would be interesting two catagories
1.) The longest Rhizome from the main grove
2.) The longest past the last shoot

I have a Bissetii that is now a straight run of culms about 20 feet long but there is no grove it is pretty much one culm wide the whole way spaced about every 8- 10 inches

For what it's worth, I have some nuda shoots coming up 20 feet or so away from the nearest nuda culm. I mow the are between so the rhizomes have pushed out 20' plus, some culms may be 20', after the 20' run though they hit a gravel driveway so I can not say how far they would keep going as the gravel stops 'em dead.

needmore wrote:...., after the 20' run though they hit a gravel driveway ......the gravel stops 'em dead.

Oh! now that is interesting! Does that mean a gravel or crushed rock filled trench is a good root barrier. Perhaps one was to cut a trench, line it with landscapers cloth to keep the soil from infiltrating the gravel and then fill it with gravel (maybe the landscapers cloth would only be needed with crushed rock). The low nutrient value of the gravel would seem to be a root deterrent to some degree. Has anybody tried this? Gravel fill might also be used in conjunction with plastic root barrier as well. A drain tile properly laid in the bottom might keep the gravel dry enough to enhance its effectiveness.

Gravel driveways work because the are so very very compacted that the rhizomes cannot push through them, I have bamboo groves on both sides of 500' of gravel driveway. They reach the driveway and sometimes arch up trying to push hard into it but give up and move on elsewhere. I would think that a gravel filled trench would not be effective due to the lack of some serious compaction, in fact my atrovaginata pushes out of it's raised bed and produces rhizomes and shoots in the adjacent gravel in an area where we do not drive and it is not compacted, I take division from the gravel sometimes there.