Golden golden; aborted shoots.

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bgiles
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Location: Whidbey Island WA and Hilo

Golden golden; aborted shoots.

Post by bgiles »

Hi all; I've been growing many varieties of bamboo here in Puget Sound region since 1982. This has been a bad couple of years as my Spectabalis, Meguruchiku, NItida and one patch of Golden golden have flowered. But what is bugging me the most is the aborting of culms of the Golden...They take off beautifully, are watered regularly, new leaves unfurl and are nice and green...then the culm tops turn to mush and fall over, leaving a normal looking stump with some branches and leaves. PLEASE do not tell me this is normal. The patch is full of half grown stumps. Any explanation of the mechanism for this would be extremely welcome. Here on Whidbey Island we get about 18" of rain a year, so summer watering is necessary for most of my bamboos.
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Glen
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Location: Southeast Texas, Zone 9a

Re: Golden golden; aborted shoots.

Post by Glen »

This does sound unusual. Normally, if the grove produces too many shoots, they will abort when they are a few inches to a few feet tall, but well before they begin to branch. Also, the shoots die right down to the rhizomes. Since your shoots die after they produce leaves, and the lower portions survive, I believe something else is happening here.

The first thing I would do is inspect the point of death in each culm to see if an insect has chewed or bored into the culm at that point. I have seen the problem you describe with many non-bamboo plants, and the cause is almost always some kind of stem borer.
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