3 pieces of advice for bamboo farmers

[@lukestevenson7475]

Hi, Fred. Been following and enjoying and learning so much from your videos and website. In this video, you talked about starting a bamboo nursery and that there are various methods of propagation. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on At Home propagation utilizing tissue cultures for increasing the number of viable, available plants more quickly. Can you comment or share what you’ve heard from others in your world travels? Thanks again, for sharing your knowledge and inspiring people like me.

[@bambubatu]

Thanks Luke. My understanding of tissue culture is that you need a lab setting and totally sterile conditions, and a fair amount of skill and expertise. The running bamboo tend to be more difficult than the tropicals. To be honest, I've never heard of people doing this at home on a micro scale. If you're working small scale, it's 100 times (at least) easier to just do rhizome or culm cuttings, for runners and clumpers respectively. But it could be a fun and rewarding (hopefully not too frustrating) home science project. Hope that helps!

[@TomBTerrific]

I’m looking to purchase 40 in Mississippi. I’m really ignorant about bamboo other than I know what it is. I have some bamboo at my home in Florida but didn’t know the variety. We just cut it from someone else’s plant. It’s been in n the ground for about 3 years now and is still growing but it’s not lush I think it’s wanting more water. I was thinking of planting some in Mississippi but I think it freezes there and I won’t be around to baby it. It needs to be able to grow with little care. I also want larger diameter clumping varieties. Any suggestions?

[@bambubatu]

Oldhamii is a large clumper that can handle occasional frosts. Henon is a big runner, but it can handle freezes without a problem.