Mark Meckes
1st June 2001, 09:02 AM
If you grow bamboo, there are times when young immature bamboo is a bi-product of maintenance.
It is usually returned to the grove as mulch, but could be used to make paper/ pulp.
Young(immature) bamboo becomes available when:
- young culms grow tall, then die in the first year due to lack of sunlght/overcrowding, lack of nutrients.
- young culms are damaged/destroyed by weather or`pests'
- selective thinning of smaller and overcrowded or unwanted growth
- a pile of bamboo turns up at the door step
I remember last year when we cleared up a grove of Phyllostachys aurea using a garden chipper/shredder. When aged dry YOUNG culms that had died immaturely were fed into the chipper, it would grind to a halt, if I didn't feed them in slowly. The culms shred into a fibrous mass.
In contrast, aged MATURE culms came out of the chipper as chips, because their fibers had become brittle.
All this material was returned to our steep grove hillside to help retain moisture, and for erosion control.
There is an eroding 12ft cliff-edge at the top of the hill, above the bamboo grove, and I've been wondering if there was something that could be mixed in with the shredded/chipped bamboo, to make a `bamboo pulp' that could be applied to the cliff wall, like stucco.
Meanwhile, we are saving young and aged bamboo for the day that we get a chipper again, and will be thinking about making paper/pulp.
Mark (and Carole)
It is usually returned to the grove as mulch, but could be used to make paper/ pulp.
Young(immature) bamboo becomes available when:
- young culms grow tall, then die in the first year due to lack of sunlght/overcrowding, lack of nutrients.
- young culms are damaged/destroyed by weather or`pests'
- selective thinning of smaller and overcrowded or unwanted growth
- a pile of bamboo turns up at the door step
I remember last year when we cleared up a grove of Phyllostachys aurea using a garden chipper/shredder. When aged dry YOUNG culms that had died immaturely were fed into the chipper, it would grind to a halt, if I didn't feed them in slowly. The culms shred into a fibrous mass.
In contrast, aged MATURE culms came out of the chipper as chips, because their fibers had become brittle.
All this material was returned to our steep grove hillside to help retain moisture, and for erosion control.
There is an eroding 12ft cliff-edge at the top of the hill, above the bamboo grove, and I've been wondering if there was something that could be mixed in with the shredded/chipped bamboo, to make a `bamboo pulp' that could be applied to the cliff wall, like stucco.
Meanwhile, we are saving young and aged bamboo for the day that we get a chipper again, and will be thinking about making paper/pulp.
Mark (and Carole)