Mythbusters alert.

[bepah]

All,

If you watch the TV show Mythbusters, they are have a BRA (Bamboo Related Activity) section on the show this coming Wednesday, acocrding the the teaser I just saw this morning.

According the the myth, A person tied down over a new shoot about to spike will be impaled by it and killed as it shoots through his body, a very slow and painful death (unless the shoot grows 1 foot a day, I guess).

Just thought you would like to know....I'll be watching.

[GrowingHabit]

I noticed that too... its in our DVR schedule, for sure!

[Flashburn]

anyone taking bets? My money is on the bamboo that they pick being some crap from home depot that couldn't grow its way through a wet paper bag.


Has anyone here met a shoot that you couldn't just break the crap out of it by laying on it?

[kudzu9]

That impaling business is baloney. I know...I tried it on some squirrels.

[dependable]

Well, that's disturbing about the squirrels , Anyway the warped history of human cruelty, there apparently were cases of people being staked out to be impaled by bamboo. These were tropical varieties. And lets not blame the plants. People have always been good at being inhuman.

[Flashburn]

I still say it wont happen heh

[mike best]

I bet they strap a 200 pound gelatin mannequin over the culm and it grows right through it.

[foxd]

I once left a bag of soil laying on the ground for a few weeks and when I went to move it I found it fastened to the ground with rhizomes.

Hmmm...I wonder if they will do the experiment with MOSO shoots.

[Spectabilis]

That impaling business is baloney. I know...I tried it on some squirrels.

I will definitely be tuning in for this one! My kids love Mythbusters.

As far as your problem with squirrels, you should try this!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF1rdqjaiPk

[dependable]

I don't have a tv , so let me know how it goes.. I read about he bamboo inplailing in a old account of the Spanish American war in the Phillepeans. They also tied folks to trees , over ant's nests, and put sugar on their faces and up their noses ..... But maybey it was lie, like the sinking of the Maine

[Bamboo4me]

I'd bet on my Henon impaling some one with ease. It shot right through the side of one of the super heavy plastic pots and looked like a sharp needle tip after going through. My henon has grown 30 inches in a day. 105F with lots of water. I can't even cut those pots with new blades in my sheet rock knife.
Gelatin man will have a boo running through him Wednesday night (my bet)

[Flashburn]

New species name.. Henon the Impaler

[Bamboo4me]

New species name.. Henon the Impaler

Good one! I sure wouldn't have wanted to be tied down over that shoot!

[ghmerrill]

I have seen P. aureasulcata spectabalis push a shoot through rizhome barrier, so I dont dont see any problem with it... I think it comes down to what type of shoot.... a swollen bud on mature rhizome that is developing into a new culm aint gonna cut it. a whipshoot from a rhziome tip is a a shoo in however. both turn into culms, but the whipshoots form from the sharp tip of the rhizome, and can punch through pretty tough material.

[foxd]

New species name.. Henon the Impaler

I tend to think of my Pseudosasa viridula as vampire bamboo. (Count Viridula *blah* *blah*)

I also have this mental image of the twist ending of a vampire movie movie where the coffin is hidden in a bamboo grove only to be pierced by a fast growing bamboo shoot that penetrates the vampire's heart.

BTW, a couple of years ago I found a rather heated discussion on a vampire forum on the effectiveness of stakes made of bamboo.