Bamboo as a soil builder?

[cngodles]

One interesting thing that I've noticed with the old yellow groove source grove (say that 5 times fast) is the neat soil transformation due to the leaf mulch. The entire grove leaves dropped this winter.

Whenever I dig, I find many worms using the leaves as cover, living on top of the soil. The top is like the soil you find with fishing worms, thousands of little dirt balls (there is a name for this, just can't think of it). Does anyone else experience this with their grove?

[ShmuBamboo]

Worm castings? Or friable soil? All good signs. Bamboo does make its own litter, mulch and good soil growing medium. Sounds like yours are planted in a palacial bamboo space.

[Mark Meckes]

Back in the late 80's I had an opportunity to groom a grove of Phyllostachys flexuosa in which the core of the grove had been left untouched for 50+years.
(This memory jolt reminds me that I haven't uploaded any pics from this time and will need to search through my showbox of old pics from this wild experience)

In the center of the grove I found a large boulder protruding just above the soil line which was covered with a 6 inch layer of peat-like humus - the result of a half century of leaf litter deposited by the bamboo.
I knew this was bamboo humus because underneath this humus I found bottles and trash from the bygone era.

Grasses are are by their nature, sod-formers so large bamboos could be considered giant sod formers.
Early (US) pioneers knew that land which grew the native bamboo Arundinaria gigantea was fertile land due to it's soil building capabilities and much of this land was long ago turned into farmland.

Yep, I remember well, the mulch buildup from leaf drop caused by the desiccating effects of harsh winters in NE Pennsylvania:

Phyllostachys angusta
http://www.bamboocraft.net/bamboo/data/510/medium/1Mvc-073f.jpg (http://www.bamboocraft.net/bamboo/showphoto.php?photo=557)

Phyllostachys heteroclada
http://www.bamboocraft.net/bamboo/data/515/medium/1Mvc-086f.jpg (http://www.bamboocraft.net/bamboo/showphoto.php?photo=573)