Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

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terrabamboo
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Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

Post by terrabamboo »

Question for the group here....

I've read many of you have seen late autumn shoots on some of your bamboos.... I too have probably several hundred shoots across my groves that have just poked up 6-24" from the ground this month...

as a general pontification, I have to wonder... is it wise to try and let the bamboo expend energy trying to push these up with a likelihood of never making it (freezing off), or is it more wise to just snip them off, to encourage rhizome energy storage for next season?

for example, one of my large robert young divisions put up 13 shoots this month!! they are about the size of your pinky and -not- whip shoots. they seem to be destined to be about 4 feet tall -- wondering if it is even worth it for the plant to keep trying.
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Alan_L
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Re: Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

Post by Alan_L »

I don't have late shoots on this scale, but I wonder about this too. My gut says to cull the shoots, but I never do.
Tarzanus
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Re: Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

Post by Tarzanus »

I also asked myself the same thing. I noticed last year that new shoots died and then next year, the part just below the soil produced branches that were the first green part of the plant. Established bamboo doesn't need that (well, they also usually don't shoot at this time of year), but it might be helpful with young plants.

I don't know if cutting shoots down wouldn't trigger immedite formation of new shoots, stressing bamboo even more. I left them as they are and mostly shoots stopped growing by themselves. With exception of Borinda fungosa which has like 2.5m high shoot already and several younger that just got out of the soil, that one grows steadily each day.
pokenei
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Re: Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

Post by pokenei »

My rubro tends to do that - put up late autumn shoots. Most shoots are about halfway through maturity, but at least one shoot I found that had stop growing itself after protruding about 4 inches out of ground, perhaps sensing that the weather was cooling rapidly.

Another bamboo with late shoots is Propinqua 'Beijing'. It's a small little grove, lucky to have survived through last Winter. It's put up a few shoots throughout the growing season, the latest of which still has not branched out and will likely not make it. It was grown in a temporary location that is confined by paving stones. One of its rhizomes (perhaps the only one) hit the rough paving stones and couldn't dive down any further, and as a result of the rhizome sections' continual expansion, it has formed an arc that is at least half a foot tall. Hope that rhizome can survive this coming Winter.
stevelau1911
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Re: Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

Post by stevelau1911 »

I think if you are in zone 8 or warmer, late shoots won't be a problem because they shouldn't die back anyways with your winters. As long as the shoot is semi-hardened off, and not juicy, it should just halt its growth and then continue leafing out the following spring. With new bamboos, every last shoot counts.

Here's my late moso bicolor shoot that has since leafed out a bit more after 1-2 weeks from this picture, but it shouldn't suffer any damage since it shouldn't drop any lower than the teens inside the unheated greenhouse.
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JWH
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Re: Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

Post by JWH »

I don't cut down my late shoots anymore since they sometimes survive winters here and resume growth in the spring.
stevelau1911
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Re: Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

Post by stevelau1911 »

Here's an interesting video, and perhaps a way to get late shoots up to size and matured with the remainder of the season called double solarization.



It looks very similar to what I have going inside my greenhouse however a few things that could be an even further upgrade is this,

1. Compost on the entire greenhouse floor for carbon dioxide/heat generation
2. Barrels of water for a thermal mass
3. North side reflective cover/ bubble wrap double insulation over entire greenhouse
4. Leaf bags up all sides except for the south to reduce heat loss
5. Locating greenhouse in an area with full sun, and fairly protected from too many winds

I haven't checked the soil temperature under the plastic here yet, but I believe that it must be far warmer than outdoor temperatures by a huge margin. I will need to monitor the soil temperatures in the late winter with increasing daylight intensity because I don't want a 2 inch bicolor shoot to come rising through the plastic in March and pierce through the roof of this greenhouse without me realizing, and never getting hardened off enough to handle outdoor conditions.

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stevelau1911
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Re: Late autumn shoots -- off with their heads??

Post by stevelau1911 »

It looks like that same bicolor shoot from a couple weeks ago is leafing out now in November. Leaf growth seems to be resuming on a lot of bamboos inside the greenhouse so they don't look anywhere close to dormant.

After taking this photo, I did add more greens and browns because I saw that the compost in there was already more than half way broken down already.
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When I was adding in more compost materials, I noticed that the rhizome growth inside the greenhouse has continued all along, and should continue well into December as I don't see it dropping below 50F any time soon with the composting effect.
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Here's one of the rhizomes only 1-2ft outside of the greenhouse which has clearly gone dormant as the soil temperature there is nowhere close to what it is in the greenhouse.
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It dropped to 30F inside the greenhouse 2 nights ago, only 6F warmer than the outdoor low so I also know that I needed to insulate the greenhouse and cut off any open gaps which allow air to flow in easily. That's as simple as digging dirt onto the flaps to hold down the plastic so no air can flow through, and then add lots of tree leaves afterwards to ensure it is well insulated. I could take it a step farther and put a layer of bubble wrap over the entire greenhouse, but I don't think that is necessary just yet.
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