Growing Timor Black from seed - College Station, TX

[TAMUmpower]

like the title says. ive got about 5 i think of the timor sprouted right now. planted 18

[TAMUmpower]

well, looks like i only have 3 sprouted right now. But they have taken off. they are a good 6 inches+ tall and are about the same size as my 2 month old moso plants. I'm going to try to re-germinate the other 15 seeds after i transplant these.

[TAMUmpower]

Well, the 3 that sprouted are going buck wild in those cups. 2 of them have second sprouts. One of them has a really fat sprout and the whole plant is about 3 times the size of my biggest moso. The timor black is like 1/3 the age too.

http://www.bamboocraft.net/bamboo/data/808/medium/08-31-07_1626.jpg (http://www.bamboocraft.net/bamboo/showphoto.php?photo=5015)

The original stem in this pic is about another 6-8 inches above the photo.

[Mark Meckes]

Hi TAMUmpower,
Thanks for the update!
The species name for Timor Black is Bambusa lako (http://www.bamboocraft.net/bamboo/showgallery.php?cat=634)
New shoots begin as green and change to black by their second year.
They will ocassionally retain some green stripes in a few places on the internodes.

It will be very interesting to see if the seedlings retain these color characteristics or become a green or other type of species form.
Bambusa lako is only top hardy to around 28 F (-2C), so this plant will need some protection during the winter.
It has withstood winters further south (in Texas) with minor leaf damage depending on the severity of winter.
Also late shoots don't harden up sufficiently and will get zapped by frost.

(An album has been started for these seedling pics at the Gallery Bamboo Flora)
You can upload there or into this post and best pics will be cross-linked.

Looking forward to seeing progressive pics, and hopefully your camera can take some close-up shots of the shoot sheaths in the future.
You might need to place something behind the shoot to get the camera to focus.

Cheers,
Mark

[TAMUmpower]

http://www.photodump.org/stored17/TB1.jpg

http://www.photodump.org/stored17/TB2.jpg

http://http://www.photodump.org/stored17/TB3.jpg

http://www.photodump.org/stored17/allall.jpg

The 3 big ones in the bottom right are the black. the 8 in the back left is Buddah Belly and the rest are all moso.

[TAMUmpower]

Within 2 days of watering all of my bamboo turned a light yellow and is dead.

2 of the buddah belly plants had leaves that had green patches in the middle but the rest of the plant was dead. They were not moved and were receiving the same amount of sun they had been getting for the past 2-3 months.

[Mark Meckes]

Really sorry to hear about this!
I've been enjoying seeing the progress of your plants in your posts and this is a major setback.
It's odd that this should happen to your different species at the same time.

Have you checked the root system of any of the plants?
What do they look like?

[TAMUmpower]

one of the more scragely mosos i took out of the cup and it still had a root that was longer than the cup. Is there a chance that any of these will reshoot if i just leave them.