Ron S
29th October 2008, 08:14 PM
I am not involved in commercial marketing and am a homeowner in metropolitan Washington DC with bamboo planted by the original owner growing on two sides of my small lot. I harvest stalks for a roof covering for an outside ‘house’ made for religious observance and keep the stalks in my unheated but enclosed sheltered crawl space the rest of the year.
I occasionally notice small penetration holes on the stalks about one mm round just above a joint. It appears to be an insect infestation that then eats inside the section leaving a fine powder and a thinned stalk wall. This goes on with time including after the harvested stalks dry out, not just with fresh wood. On fresh cut bamboo the inside can be moist and black. Sometimes there are internal penetrations into an adjoining section. There are not exit holes.
What pest is this consistent with?
Is the fine yellow-brown dust bamboo fiber remnants and / or insect droppings? Are there reports of the dust being an allergen?
How can I combat these insects? We use a dehumidifier in the crawl space and I sometimes syringe inject a disinfectant into the holes bored in the bamboo.
For your information my stand is about 50 years old and larger stalks reach 45 feet in height.
I occasionally notice small penetration holes on the stalks about one mm round just above a joint. It appears to be an insect infestation that then eats inside the section leaving a fine powder and a thinned stalk wall. This goes on with time including after the harvested stalks dry out, not just with fresh wood. On fresh cut bamboo the inside can be moist and black. Sometimes there are internal penetrations into an adjoining section. There are not exit holes.
What pest is this consistent with?
Is the fine yellow-brown dust bamboo fiber remnants and / or insect droppings? Are there reports of the dust being an allergen?
How can I combat these insects? We use a dehumidifier in the crawl space and I sometimes syringe inject a disinfectant into the holes bored in the bamboo.
For your information my stand is about 50 years old and larger stalks reach 45 feet in height.