[Terrapreta] bamboo biochar?

[David Yarrow]

personally, around here, i find bamboo to be an invasive, unruly, impossible to restrain pest.  i've got three small clumps that are racing around my 1.3 acre jungle.  they grow in one spot a few years, then send out 20 to 40 foot long cable-size and equally tough runners to sprout in beds and pathways, smothering everything.  however, it is a useful plant -- expecially its hard hollow stems make nice pipes and tubes, and strong lattices.  and i hear it makes a very fine charcoal, preferred by artists.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw/2004360712_pacificpbamboo20.html

Pacific NW Cover Story
Cracking the code 
to 'the perfect plant' 
opens a path to saving the planet
By Paula Bock

If Jackie Heinricher's Chilean feather bamboo hadn't flowered in her Skagit County garden 10 years ago, we might, this very moment, be snacking on the latest, greatest gourmet craze: crunchy chips made from bamboo shoots.

But flower it did, a once-in-a-century phenomenon. All over the world, from Argentina to Alameda to Anacortes, every clump of Chusquea culeou unfurled fairy-like fans of pointy mauve petals and dancing chartreuse pods. Inside the pods nestled tiny seeds that Heinricher carefully stripped off by hand and germinated with the help of a local tissue-culture lab. It was a horticultural feat that eventually left Heinricher with 10,000 baby bamboos.

Even more significant? The ideas sprouting in Heinricher's head - ideas that blossomed into a bamboo empire beyond gardens. Four years ago, Heinricher and tissue-culture expert Randy Burr discovered how to clone bamboo in a test tube after years of arduous experimentation. Now, Heinricher's multimillion-dollar high-tech company, Boo-Shoot Gardens in Mount Vernon, produces more than 2 million plants a year and has launched a "Plant-a-Boo" crusade to curb global warming.

Heard of the United Nations program to plant a billion trees for the planet? Bamboo sequesters carbon dioxide at far higher rates than an equivalent stand of trees and releases up to three times the amount of oxygen.

for a green & peaceful planet,
David Yarrow
44 Gilligan Rd, E Greenbush, NY 12061
www.championtrees.org
www.OnondagaLakePeaceFestival.org
www.farmandfood.org
www.SeaAgri.com
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