Today's the day!

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needmore
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Re: Today's the day!

Post by needmore »

If you got a big enough piece of rhizome that still has viable buds, I would expect it to shoot at the normal time this spring. If so I would expect it to produce pretty big shoots - maybe as big as you dug if you got enough of the right rhizome. But next year I would expect shoots that are only 25% the size of this years or somewhere along those lines.
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bigone5500
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Re: Today's the day!

Post by bigone5500 »

needmore wrote:If you got a big enough piece of rhizome that still has viable buds, I would expect it to shoot at the normal time this spring. If so I would expect it to produce pretty big shoots - maybe as big as you dug if you got enough of the right rhizome. But next year I would expect shoots that are only 25% the size of this years or somewhere along those lines.
The rhizome I dug was about 24" to 30" long. I saw what I thought were buds on it. The rhizome came from about 10" away from the root ball.
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Re: Today's the day!

Post by needmore »

Not sure we're on the same page - I'm talking abut the tall division that you dug, and the rhizome it is attached to. If you got a young and large enough rhizome it should produce a decent culm this year.

The bare rhizome in your picture looked kind of old but that was the exposed part so perhaps the parts still buried in soil have a fresher color, if so you might get a smallish culm from that as well.
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Re: Today's the day!

Post by bigone5500 »

needmore wrote:Not sure we're on the same page - I'm talking abut the tall division that you dug, and the rhizome it is attached to. If you got a young and large enough rhizome it should produce a decent culm this year.

The bare rhizome in your picture looked kind of old but that was the exposed part so perhaps the parts still buried in soil have a fresher color, if so you might get a smallish culm from that as well.
Ok, I understand what you meant now. Thanks.
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Re: Today's the day!

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I recall the first time I dug bamboo I was offered everything - they wanted the grove gone. I didn't know what I was doing, no instructions so I just dug everything with culms in as big a pieces as I could and also pulled yards of rhizome that I kept seeing outside the grove in their yard. Replanted it all including digging yards of trenches for the yards of rhizome which produced nothing at all. Once I learned what to look for I realized that all of the rhizome I had dug was old and dead with no real chance to be viable.

Now, I only take rhizome that is creamy white, has lots of feeder roots that look healthy, has visibly swollen buds, and I discard the growing tip back about 3 feet or so as usually those are immature buds and not worth messing with. That part usually only has the larger anchor roots, no fine feeder roots so don't waste effort with those sections. Plus I only dig them in Feb-April.

I now have some beds just for bare rhizome, I pull as long of sections as I can, snip off the part that does not look viable and then I bury the pieces in trenches in long sections - I think there is lots more energy leaving them in long sections. If they make culms fine, if not fine, I leave them alone until August and then just lift the rhizomes out. At this point I'll prune the long rhizomes as appropriate to ensure that the culms that came up have good sections of rhizome and then pot them up. I strongly prefer this method to the alternative of snipping them into smaller sections and potting them when initially lifted which, tends to produce viable but very slow to size up new stock. I think that you save time, don't waste soil or pots and the rhizomes have a better chance to vigorously produce new plants. It is not uncommon to get new culms in the 4-6 foot range this way and in the following year you'll have nice size plants with new rhizome of their own - much faster than the extra time it takes for the short
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bigone5500
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Re: Today's the day!

Post by bigone5500 »

You have probably seen the grove where I get my bamboo from. The culms are very dense and very large. How can I know where to dig? Is it just a matter of start a dig and see what's there and go from there?

Also, I have seen some rhizomes that come out of the ground hook over and go back in. They are green like the culms and seem to be tough. Are these not an ideal rhizome to gather?
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Re: Today's the day!

Post by stevelau1911 »

If you are digging them to pot up and either trade or sell, I think the smaller culms on the southern edge of the grove would be ideal. It's better to make sure you have a bit more rhizome mass than culms, and multiple culms in each division should work well. The rhizomes on the edge of the grove should also be younger and more likely to have viable buds so you can take entire sections of it, making sure you don't break too many feeder roots and using needmore's technique.
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Re: Today's the day!

Post by Alan_L »

bigone5500 wrote:Also, I have seen some rhizomes that come out of the ground hook over and go back in. They are green like the culms and seem to be tough. Are these not an ideal rhizome to gather?
The part that is out of the ground is kinda worthless, as it won't generate culms or rhizomes, but if you use it as a starting point and get a decent sized length of buried rhizome, that's fine.

One problem with those "hook" rhizomes is that they're often in the middle. If you cut them out, you may have disconnected some length of rhizome and its culms from the main plant, and that section is now a separate plant. In a mature grove this may not matter, but in a young plant this can be important because that little plant needs to size up again.

That's one reason why taking from the edge of the grove is a good idea.
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