Geoff Lawton's "Power of Bamboo" video now live

So far there is not a "shortie" clip of this video on permaculturenews.com. I'll check later today to see if it's up and post it here.

For now - here is the full version . Yes - you will need to sign in with your email address to watch it.

I think this is the shortie

Good video. I learned some things I didn't know. I especially like the parts about bamboo on pond dams.

I do want to say, about the stuff with the floods ....

41) I think berms built into a "C" shape do a better job of holding onto passing soils - but it could be fun to try tests!

42) When capturing passing soils like this I get a stomach ache. I think about how I get the soils to be all awesome and then a flood brings me somebody else's soil where they've been spraying it for decades.

I just got a note from Rick Valley about bamboo on dams. He said "be careful". Apparently, rodents things the roots are made of ice cream and will munch in little tunnels in the deliciousness. And then install some wonderful networks of tunnels. And because they don't have any don't-make-holes-in-dams training, sometimes mistakes are made and now your dam gets washed out.

I I have several different species of bamboo on my farm that were planted in a ring. So I dug a pond inbetween them. This caused the 25year old bamboo to explode! New shoots everywhere, roots sticking out of the pond walls trying to find the water. And the pond seems to hold water up to a set point year round. I have a leaky dam wall, but not because of the boo. This just confirms my theory that I should encourage the boo to spread over the dam wall.

Second pic of said bamboo ring

Cliff Davis down here in Tn. It is important to understand that there are two types of Bamboo. Monopodial and Sympodial. One is clumping and are primarily grown in tropical and subtropical regions. The other is running and they are primarily grown in Temperate climates. Temperate climates have very few clumping varieties of bamboo but there are some. I thought the video was good but there needed to be some clarity on this point. Please see the book Bamboo Farming for more details if you are interested. Also, visit your American Bamboo Society for more inforamation on the Genus and species for your climate
Thanks
www.spiralridgepermaculture.com

Hi All,

I want to support Cliff's comments - I *love* my bamboo, but I read books, did research, and try to get my bamboo from reliable sources. Temperate bamboo's tend to get people's danders up (Invasive weeds! Impossible to get rid of! etc, etc) because it is easy to plant the wrong bamboo in the wrong location and not treat it like a wonderful harvestable resource. My favorite one for my ecosystem is Phyllostachys dulcis . (http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Phyllostachys+dulcis) Even though it's in a location with a fair bit of frost, it's mulched well and seems to cope. I give it a little water when there's been a long drought. The shoots are definitely delicious in wraps and stir-frys, although it will run, mine seems to do so very slowly, although it may not be the strongest for building with, it is more than adequate for simple garden trellisses. I also adopted a "black bamboo" which I'm guessing might be a Phyllostachys nigra. This is a downside of bamboo - The Gardener's Guide to Growing Temperate Bamboos by Michael Bell, talks about how difficult identification can be. Shoots may look different, plants change colour as they age, and like many plants, the common names can be deceiving! The "black bamboo" is a beautiful plant, but I haven't tried eating it and it's only just getting large enough that I need to harvest some culms to thin it. It's culms are definitely a smaller diameter than the P. dulcis.

I would have liked to know more about which types of bamboo are recommended for forage. Geoff talked mostly about Bambusa spp, which I'm not as familiar with.

Some bamboo advantages: 1. If you chop the culm at a desired hight, the branches may reach a little higher, but the culm itself will not grow any higher.
2. Bamboo *does not* like seaweed - blew that one once and wondered why it looked unhappy the next spring! However, if you have a bamboo that needs limiting or removing, covering it with seaweed a few times will help you out.
3. If you choose a variety that's delicious, motivating yourself to limit its spread is easier. In fact, I had to fence mine this spring as it appears that either the wild rabbits, the muscovies, or both were getting the shoots before I could!

Jay

paul wheaton wrote:I just got a note from Rick Valley about bamboo on dams. He said "be careful". Apparently, rodents things the roots are made of ice cream and will munch in little tunnels in the deliciousness. And then install some wonderful networks of tunnels. And because they don't have any don't-make-holes-in-dams training, sometimes mistakes are made and now your dam gets washed out.

I wonder if these would self-heal over time as more hair roots fill in the gaps? Probably depends on the extent of the infestation. Or perhaps it is a "lack of a ?" problem (like Mollison said - "you don't have a slug problem you have a lack of a duck problem")

Does anyone have recommendations for reputable sources of bamboo for cool temperate?

I love Geoff Lawton's videos but I'm not sure this is a road I want to take. I have considered constructing something like this on the bottom of my terraced perennial garden but have not considered bamboo until now. I was thinking more along the lines of sun chokes. If they invade where i don't want them I'll just dig them up and eat them. I believe there are other advantages to using sun chokes as well. They make beautiful flowers for pollination, lots of biomass for my compost, and the tubers grow in an matrix. Granted, not as thick as bamboo but good enough to hold a hillside together. Using them for pond dams may be a different story but for everything else sun chokes get my vote. Agree or disagree? I'd love to hear what y'all think. Scott

paul wheaton wrote:I just got a note from Rick Valley about bamboo on dams. He said "be careful". Apparently, rodents things the roots are made of ice cream and will munch in little tunnels in the deliciousness. And then install some wonderful networks of tunnels. And because they don't have any don't-make-holes-in-dams training, sometimes mistakes are made and now your dam gets washed out.

I'm thinking this is a either west coast/PNW rodent problem or there are specific bamboo species that they prefer to eat. I've been growing bamboo (Hibanobambusa tranquillans) on my upstate SC dam for 12 years without rodent problems and I've watched a dam covered with bamboo (Phyllostachys aureosulcata) in western NC since 1981 that has had no apparent leakage problems.