Multiplex seeded

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Caliglas
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Location: Myakka City, Florida

Multiplex seeded

Post by Caliglas »

So I had a bamboo plant, some sort of Multiplex my guess, go to seed. I collected a boatload of the seeds. I told my daughter that if we have a million seeds, we could get around $35 a plant, and rough estimate we could make $35 million. Probably a little optimistic :D Anyway I went down to Okeechobee to pick up a few chickens and the guythere had bamboo everywhere on his property. I had a bunch of the tops still seeded in the back of my truck and told him about my plant. He told me in the several times he had tried to grow bamboo from seed he had zero luck. I got a little disappoined. However, I have been out of town for a month or so and when I got home I see all these little bamboo seedlings growing around the plant. Does anyone have an experience like this and what was the longer term outcome? I would love to have some of the seeds grow to full plants.
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Jerry
Alan_L
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Re: Multiplex seeded

Post by Alan_L »

I think the seed needs to be planted when fresh for best results, as the seedlings around the plant seem to confirm.

I've grown a few smaller runners from seed, and the plants did great. Dig up as many of those as you can and pot them up. When they're small they can take a fair amount of disturbance. Once they're bigger and have larger root systems it's harder to pot them (that's general advice for digging up volunteer seedlings of any kind, but should apply to bamboo too).
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Glen
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Re: Multiplex seeded

Post by Glen »

I have grown bamboo from seeds produced by my own plants, and I have heard of tropical bamboos reseeding themselves, as yours has done. They are not any harder to grow from seed than most other plants. That is assuming one has experience growing plants from seed. :D

Seedlings initially grow fairly slowly, until they build some plant mass. The important thing to do is keep them well fertilized and watered during the early stages.

If they were mine, I would dig a few (keeping the rootballs intact) and pot them, just so you can give them extra attention, and maybe even put them in the shade. You are far enough south that shade will be helpful to very small bamboo plants.

I would also leave a few in the ground, and fertilize and water these as well. As far a fertilizer, I highly recommend a water soluble fertilizer mixed at full label strength. Any type of granular fertilizer could easily kill those small seedlings.

If your soil is rich enough, and you get plenty of precipitation, you might have success with no effort. However, if you do as I suggest, there is no reason you will not have some nice plants in a couple years.
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