How to maximize the size of next year's shoots.

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johnw
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Re: How to maximize the size of next year's shoots.

Post by johnw »

Nicholas wrote:Without a proper setup using control groups, a reasonable sample size and of course the same conditions and clones this is all just a lot of educated guessing and gut feeling.

The same goes for tying culms apart. You might get a bit more photosynthesis but in dry areas you could increase the evaporation rate to a point where it is detrimental to the plant.

What I am trying to say is that by all means people should pamper their plants if they have the time and energy for it but there is probably only so much you can do before you kind of "max out" what can be achieved and any effort on top of that will only have a tiny effect.
Nicholas

I couldn't agree more. A good scientific study is what's needed to prove such things given all the variables. This probably exists somewhere - India or China would be first guesses - where bamboo production is hot. I would not be tying my culms apart; after how many 10s of thousands of years bamboos themselves have surely worked out their best stance for maximum growth and survival. What is sad is that we cannot view Phyllostachys spp. in the wild where they originally existed to see what those conditions were truly like, they were surely maximal qand we could have learned so much.

14c & overcast, torrential rains yesterday.
johnw coastal Nova Scotia
stevelau1911
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Re: How to maximize the size of next year's shoots.

Post by stevelau1911 »

I've actually found that regular green moso leaves have tended to curl when humidity is relatively low with higher temperatures, but the bicolor just doesn't seem to have that with its overall smaller leaves. I really doubt staking apart could have a negative effect since more blades get exposed to full sun, perhaps leading to a 15% increase in exposure once fully leafed out.

I did happen to get a massive 1 2/3 inch shoot last year which never got that tall, and really failed to produce that much foliage likely because the grove wasn't ready to create such a monster yet, but the 1 inchers of this year have already surpassed how leafy that huge shoot got with the entire season, and it's not even July yet. My guess is that I may have taken off way too many rhizome divisions which must have reduced the starches available to that given shoot last year. I don't think staking them apart is causing more leafiness, but they are certainly on track to getting super leafy like the plant was back in 2012 before the huge upsize. This year, new shoots were not very big in relation to existing culms.

This year's culms level of leafiness already. Leaf production should continue happening until around September.
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I'm finding that there still appear to be many of last year's leaves which haven't been shed yet fueling the growth of more foliage, and even 2 more small shoots. The smaller of the two (8ft culm) from 2013 which wasn't divided off appears to be getting very foliage dense unlike the bigger one which is putting on light foliage again.
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I can already tell that the overall amount of foliage is far greater than that of last year.
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One observation I have on dulcis this year is despite having a 30% drop in size after complete top kill, the overall foliar mass appears to be on an increase because there happen to be 25 shoots emerged to replace the 16 from last year, and the shorter culms happen to branch all the way starting from the ground. Culms are also way more spread apart too so this appears to be a pretty good survival mechanism for exceptionally cold winters. If we had a normal winter, my guess is that there would have been larger shoots, but not nearly as many, or as much spread.
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Tarzanus
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Re: How to maximize the size of next year's shoots.

Post by Tarzanus »

Stevelau1911
I really doubt staking apart could have a negative effect since more blades get exposed to full sun, perhaps leading to a 15% increase in exposure once fully leafed out.
I noticed just the opposite. Exposed Moso culms got fried and couldn't even leaf out this year.
Normally, Phyllostachys aurea battled full sun and usually looked more yellow than green by mid summer.

Moso leaves inside the clump are dark green and they are full of fresh foliage that couldn't even emerge on largest culms that were fully exposed to the sun. Just now, they started to look better after almost a week of wet/dry - sunny/thundery warm weather.
This year I tied Aurea into tight clump and after that, it instantly got dark green laves, none of them has any sign of damage (necrosis, dark spots, yellow-ish color,... ) like they used to.

Might be coincidence, but it looks like full sun on this location can be harmful to bamboo if it's overexposed. Phyllostachys aureosulcata on the other hand shows no stress, no matter how much sun it receives.
stevelau1911
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Re: How to maximize the size of next year's shoots.

Post by stevelau1911 »

There may be many reasons why the bicolor won't get curled leaves no matter how hot or dry it gets here. It's smaller leaves probably won't transpire as much water as ordinary moso seedling leaves. It also produces huge 1 inch or greater diameter sized rhizomes that grow very deep, sending out lots of roots well down into the soil profile so that will almost always result in more water intake. The rhizomes are also well spread out through the raised mound now so moisture can be taken in from a much greater distance. The soil has also had gypsum and other organic materials mixed into it down to about 2 feet so roots can easily grow pretty deep.

This is located under full sun too. When I had the green moso in the same spot, it struggled through every summer, but this one doesn't seem to care much about dry heat, maybe because it is very established and from a mature stock.
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