Boo shoots for 2013

[JWH]

Needmore I completely agree.

I can only speak for my location/climate but it seems like an early/late spring can greatly affect the earliest shooters such as fargesias, bashania, and tumidissinoda. While mid to late season shooters seem much less affected.

[pokenei]

Moso did come up straight as well, but most other ones are slanters - the direction seems random to me.

I am guessing this is because my plantings are still young and the roots/rhizomes are shallow, especially when topped up with compost or mulch.
When the shoot started out deep under as when the bamboo matures, that will give it enough time to straighten itself by the time the shoot breaks the surface.

My Parvifolia made about 9 shoots so far from the two plantings last year - half of those appear to be in the quarter-inch range. I meant to keep only one of the those plantings depending on which one performed better, but those two were planted too close together and I am afraid the rhizomes may have crossed paths. I have rhizomes coming up one or two feet away from the source. Would it be better to leave them alone and prune off the undersized shoots?

[stevelau1911]

I'm getting exclusively slanting whip shoots on both my parvifolia & atrovaginata this year which are both on their 5th spring, but I guess some of them will straighten out, and get about as tall as the existing growth. These 2 huge grove just seem to be outright refusing to make a true shoot this year despite producing well all the prior years with upsizes. Maybe it's because they are moving onto the on/off year cycle now.

I think if there are 2 evenly matched parvifolias, the competition would probably delay the production of larger culms as they will be competing for the same soil space, but it will be fun to see which one wipes out the other one.

It shouldn't hurt to dig one out after shooting season as the rhizomes will be spent anyways.

[dependable]

I was looking at the date stamps on some photos I took of shoots from last year. We are at least 2 weeks behind that early season. Seem like soil temperature and water availability are major factors in shooting time. I would not rule out sun angle as a factor of variability of shooting time between species.

[needmore]

In a 'normal' year, most of my Sasa, Pleioblatus, etc and Phyllostachys are shooting by mid-April, all but 2 by the end of April, a few usually start in March. This year that was not the case at all but still the early birds clustered close together in usual order within their usual 2weeks'ish period I assume when the soil conditions became proper. So that suggests that most of them need a soil temp range with slight variational preference. The the other 2 Phy's seem very particular about something and regardless of what the early birds do these like the first half'ish of May so it seems their needs are slightly different. The 3 weeks delay this year seemed to affect about everything but them. Maybe they are into numerology and there is something special about numeric combinations in May, maybe it is something else?

I realized this year that I have hard wired shooting times into my brain cuz I had tons of storm damage to cull and the order of culling was dictated by getting in and out of a grove before shooting initiated and I had that pattern in my head so there seem to be some constants in terms of order of shoot initiation if not dates thereof.

[stevelau1911]

Just a few photos. Both parvifolia and atrovaginata appear to be on their off year because both of them aren't showing an upsize, most shoots are whip shoots, and there simply aren't that many of them coming up. Good thing is that they are coming up fast so they should get pretty tall.

Decora, pretty decent output


Atrovaginata



Parvifolia


moso anderson aborting only shoot


Moso bicolor










prominens




Vivax aureocaulus

[stevelau1911]

Here's my entire parvifolia grove showing how much leaf mass is on this thing, and it appears to be leafing out a lot more this year, but since so much energy seems to be invested into the existing culms, there's hardly anything left to be sent into the new shoots this year which means very few shoots with no upsize.




Some of my spectabilis is now up to 8ft high, and should end up in the 10-11ft range as they are very close to the height of the old culms which average around 9ft.



The giant culm on my moso bicolor has taken over in height as it is around 7ft today. It seems to still be hogging all the energy for itself, leaving little for all the other shoots. Here's one that looks like like a goner as the starches are getting sucked right out of it in favor of the king.


Here's one that seems to be making it regardless of only being 1ft away from the biggest shoot in my garden.


My main prominens is making 3 shoots, 1 which should get to at least 8ft as it is about 3/4 in diameter.


I'm surprised that a rhizome taken off of this is actually taking.


The big shoot on my shanghai III appears to be aborting as all the energy seems to be directed toward releafing of the culms. It hasn't started to really shrivel up yet so hopefully this bamboo changes its mind with warmer weather.



My atrovaginata rhizome division appear to be looking better than its mother grove as it produced a decent sized shoot as well as branches from the above ground section.

[pokenei]

My Spectabilis shoot has decided to abort as well having grown about 10 cm above ground. The other shoot still sits at 2cm and has not grown a bit for over a week now. I am disappointed, but not surprised since it came with no rhizome last fall. It it still in the process of re-leafing and there are lots.

[dependable]

Had a chance to look around today. Just starting to see P nuda, flexosa, some odd Ps japonica, Hb shiroshima. No nigra(s), vivax(s), or Semiarunidnara(s).

Took down a large vivax culm that had become a defoliated leaner last winter. Noticed it had started to grow new leaves. Has anyone noticed if some species refoliate before shooting and others put it all into new shoots and refoliate later?

[stevelau1911]

My Spectabilis shoot has decided to abort as well having grown about 10 cm above ground. The other shoot still sits at 2cm and has not grown a bit for over a week now. I am disappointed, but not surprised since it came with no rhizome last fall. It it still in the process of re-leafing and there are lots.

If it's just soft, but not rotting yet, then you may still be able to save it by pulling off some sheaths as that sometimes sends a signal to harden off the exposed culm, but if that shoot is aborting, then the energy may be getting pulled into the culms or new rhizomes. Spectabilis is pretty tough so once it gets a stronghold, it's the type of bamboo that you have to spend more time controlling instead of pampering.


The bicolor is 7ft now, but I think it's small enough in diameter by now so I may cut back on the sheath pulling.


You may notice strings attached to the atrovaginata behind it as I am trying to let more light reach the floor of the clump to encourage some more shooting as it appears to have a weak showing this year.

[needmore]

Phy hispida really likes to shoot, it seems to do this each year and still really seems Fargesia-like to me.

[JWH]

Parvifolia is waking up.



Seems to be turning into a bust year here for phyllostachys, not alot of new shoots or much upsizing.

[stevelau1911]

By the end of May here's the results. Everything has made shoots so far, but aside from moso bicolor, nothing else made much of an upsize. Even though most bamboos aren't upsizing this year, there may still be gains made in height since they are shooting later, and there are very few shoots in comparison to many existing culms.

I really doubt that the winter damage was much of a factor in this poor shooting season so the drought last year must be affecting most of these boos. The moso bicolor was the only one being watered through the drought because I only have 1 sprinkler.

moso bicolor; tall shoot over 10ft tall now









These were sacrificed to put out the giant



One of the isolated rhizomes putting out a shoot that appears to be taking


This rhizome division looks like it will make it almost for sure now.


Some of them, I'm not so sure about.


spectabilis



prominens




dulcis



atrovaginata



Parvifolia with almsot all the new shoots showing in this picture.


propinqua bejing



nigra



decora



makinoi with a decent upsize


vivax aureocaulus


kwangsiensis survival shoots

[Alan_L]

Steve: as I was scrolling down I saw the telephone pole at the top of the makinoi photo and thought "wow, nice upsize!" before realizing what it was.

[foxd]

The ones I have seen do a major upsize this year are: Phy. atrovaginata, Phy. nigra, Phy. heteroclada, Phy. hispida, Phy. aureosulcata 'Harbin', Phy. acuta and Phy. edulis. The jury is still out on the others since shoot growth seems to be slow this year.

I do expect the Ps. japonica to be taller this year, since several of the shoots are a half inch in diameter and four foot tall. I figure they will top out about ten foot tall. For the record, Phy. nigra has reached 12 foot tall and Phy. edulis 16 foot.