[Terrapreta] Bamboo

[rukurt at westnet.com.au]

Hi folkes,
There has been mention of bamboo as a feedstock for charcoal production, 
very much in the same breath as the use of sugarcane trash for this 
purpose. It must be understood, that while both bamboo and sugar cane 
are grasses, there are very great differences between them.
Bamboo is a long term crop, more a forest crop than a grass type crop. 
Bamboo grown from seed will commonly take many years, often 50 to 70 
years and sometimes in the hundred years to flower again and then it 
dies. It is mainly grown from cuttings which means that many plantings 
are actually the same plant (clones) and all instances of that 
particular clone will flower at about the same time. Not long ago this 
resulted in a feed crisis for panda bears in China, when their feed 
bamboos flowered and subsequently died over large areas.
There are two main kinds of bamboos, the clumping varieties and the 
runners. Generally speaking clumpers are tropical and runners are 
temperate climate plants.
It takes at least 4 years for a planting to reach full size. At this 
point, the culms that grow every year will be about full size,sometimes 
many inches in diameter (depending on variety), with thinner culms 
growing before then. A bamboo culm grows from the shoot to it's full 
height in a matter of weeks, but will take some four years to reach full 
wall thickness. Until the culm is indeed fully mature it is not really 
worthwhile harvesting it. This requires careful supervision and marking 
of culms so that only mature ones are harvested. The running varieties 
can spread at an alarming rate, often as much as 12 meters per years. 
They are highly unpopular when they invade other properties.
Properly managed bamboo can be a very productive crop, but it is a very 
longterm crop, you can't grow bamboo this year and beans next year on 
the same plot of land.

Kurt
who is experimenting with charcoal from bamboo at present

>