Noob With Some Bamboo

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jtgelt
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Location: Missouri

Noob With Some Bamboo

Post by jtgelt »

I recently moved onto a ten acre property. I have some clumps of bamboo or bamboo like plants. I have a small herd of cows. They seem seem to like to defoliate the tall stands, but they totally ignore the immature plants. The immature plants are spreading in wet areas and crowding out palatable plants, but never mature in the wet areas, just spread. I looked at many on line resources. This does not appear to be a common weed or a native species. I took a plant to my local Extension. They identified it as a common weed. When I looked up this common weed, it had none of characteristics of the plant I brought in. E.g the weed they identified spreads by large seed pods and no rhizomes and my bamboo (like) plant has rhizomes. The tall stands are growing on tall embankments around a pond. The embankments are claylike and are dry, with little topsoil. There was no evidence of stalks from the previous growing season. The patch looked so bare that my initial plan was to spread old hay and seed it. I was surprised when this stand 6 foot tall shoots popped up out of these apparent bare spots.

https://www.facebook.com/john.geltemeye ... nref=story
Tarzanus
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Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Re: Noob With Some Bamboo

Post by Tarzanus »

Not a bamboo and certainly not even from grass family. We have identical weed, but it grows much smaller. I'll check if i can find it's ID.
Tarzanus
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Re: Noob With Some Bamboo

Post by Tarzanus »

https://www.google.com/search?q=Polygonum+lapathifolium.

This is the weed that grows up to 1 meter tall and is the largest around here. You may have larger sibling of this weed. :twisted:
Alan_L
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Location: St. Louis area

Re: Noob With Some Bamboo

Post by Alan_L »

I was going to say that it looks like a Persicaria to me too.
jtgelt
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Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 2:57 pm
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Location: Missouri

Re: Noob With Some Bamboo

Post by jtgelt »

Thank you for your analysis!


Based on what I have and looking at the pictures I would agree what I have is Persicaria of some sort. I wasn't too happy to have the Extension give me a useless answer. I am thrilled to know what I have. Thanks again. Now that I know the family I see 3 possible plants (all Persicaria) it might be. If my cows let any of it seed I should be able to nail it exactly.


I'm glad I found this resource, as I intend to plant actual bamboo next season.
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