Side by side moso comparison

[stevelau1911]

Here's just a couple photos to show a comparison of similar sized shoots on moso & moso bicolor. Aside from the difference in colors, the bicolor seems much fuzzier, and the green one is the only one showing the white rings with visible wax. Maybe it's just genetic variation.

[bamboothew]

Steve, there does seem to be lots of variation between clones of moso. I have 2 clones, the Anderson clone and a division from a 15 year-ish old seedling from Moore, SC. The Anderson is much more pubescent and the culms seem to more or less hold their green color for at least a season before fading to a greenish greyish yellowish ( ) color. The Moore clone seems to bleach to a soft yellow very quickly after sheath fall. If the pretty yellow color holds, this may become an important clone. So far, though, it seems to shoot even earlier than the Anderson so that may be a drawback.

[pokenei]

Hm...

Steve, what moso clone did you send me? It's a bit yellowish green or greenish yellow.

[stevelau1911]

It should be the same clone as the one in the top picture which maxed out with 8ft culms in 2011 before I removed the entire grove off in divisions. This type seems to upsize relatively slowly, and provide an abundance of culms. It also seems to be a slow runner compared to the moso bicolor. It is also a very juvenile clone so the leaves will still be pretty large for a moso, but it doesn't really have all the characteristics of a new seedling anymore. It should continue to look more and more mature over the years.

[stevelau1911]

I've done the shoot comparison with these 2 varieties of bamboo, but here's a branch comparison.

Both of these should be in their mature form. I've noticed that green moso tends to have slightly larger leaves, longer internodes and less leaves per branch on average.


Green moso


The first 2 photos are of the 1 2/3 incher which was likely too large of a shoot for the plant to support, especially after attempting to take 18 divisions form it, only succeeding in 9 of them, not a very smart move.
Some signs of it is when a branch is able to generate 15 nodes and reach 3ft in height with multiple bends. That's why it looks like a balloon that never got fully inflated, or was on the verge of aborting. That's not leaf burn from the 12F low a week ago.

I do notice that a key difference is that the foliage on yellow moso appears to be more wispy where the branches and leaves kind of twirl in comparison to the green which appears more solid, or geometrical.

yellow moso

[stevelau1911]

Culms look even cooler after getting aged for a year.