neighborhood bamboo patch

This bamboo is a short walking distance from our house.
It was planted years ago when the lot had a large garden.  The bamboo has taken over the garden, storage buildings, trees, rolls of wire, etc and is always encroaching on the immediate neighbors yards.

We, and others here in town are encouraged to harvest all we like with no end in sight.
One year some folks hauled big trailer loads off to sell for crawfish traps.

When Stephen B. Thomas was here over the winter he cleared a corridor for us back into the center where it was so overgrown canes were dieing.
These pictures are of that 'corridor'today....the bamboo began sending up new shoots only a week or so ago...some are already leafing out at the top....some are just small shoots.

I've read that canes should be three years old before cutting and have wondered how to keep track ..now I think cutting swaths through the grove and marking with stakes or flagging for age would make it easy.

There's a limit to what we can use and time we feel like devoting to the task although as a thought exercise it's been interesting.

Here's a link to Stephen's post with pictures of the clearing...
https://permies.com/t/365095/volunteering/experiences/Stephen-Snowbirding-Sustainability-Sojourn-February#3742789

That's a very happy bamboo patch!

If you cut a shoot (many are edible if cut young, but you need to know what type), it won't grow, so one way to keep it under control is to cut lots of shoots in the spring and only leave shoots where you want them.

If you let them grow in groups, that might make it easier to tag a whole group for harvesting purposes. I have actually heard that for longevity, 5 year old culms are even better. That said, clearly you have so much of it, that longevity isn't the biggest issue. However, it is likely to be stronger at 3-5 years of age, so if what you're doing requires strength, it would be nice to have some sections that are marked.

I have heard of it being used for firewood, but I've never tried it. I think it would be on the bulky side to store.

What sort of bamboo is that I wonder? I’m relatively sure not river cane.

If it was the variety we thought it was, definitely edible shoots...not so sure after looking at 'The Big Book of Bamboo' from the library!

Definitely not river cane although we have some on the creek nearby and it's fairly common here....we used to harvest it and bring home truckloads to our cabin...the goats cleaned the tops for us.

This has a double ring, a groove up one side, grows over 20' tall, and a couple other things that we thought indicated it was
phyllostachys bambusoide
Some that has died out is over 2" but most is so crowded it's coming up small.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllostachys_bambusoides
We hear from someone who knew that Aunt Tilly planted it and it would have been long enough ago that we thought it was the type the USDA was promoting as a useful thing to plant and maybe not explaining how to keep it in check?

We use a lot for woven garden trellises...and curtain rods and plant stakes and a few other things.
The attic of the garden shed is full of curing bamboo.