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- Bamboo shoots are a new specialty
crop with good profit potential.
Americans like new foods. Examples of popular new foods are kiwi and tofu.
Although fresh bamboo shoots wholesale for $2 to $3 per pound, they are unavailable
in farmers' markets and grocery stores. Fresh bamboo shoots are delicious
and healthy. They are low in calories and fat and high in fiber and water.
The United States imports 30,000 tons of canned bamboo shoots each year from
Taiwan, Indonesia and China. Canned bamboo shoots are a poor substitute for
fresh shoots.
- Bamboo protects farmland.
Unlike other vegetables, bamboo is a perennial crop. Its evergreen leaves
break the force of winter rains. Its strong rhizomes and tenacious roots
bind the soil, holding it even during earthquakes and flooding.
Most vegetables sold in the U.S. are annuals. In conventional farming annual
crops are produced by tilling the soil. Tilling causes massive erosion of
topsoil from wind and rain. With bamboo, the need for annual tilling is eliminated.
Dwarf bamboos tolerate shade. Where wooded hillsides slide in winter rains,
dwarf bamboos could be planted on the slide areas to stabilize the soil.
- Bamboo preserves wild forests.
Bamboo is a hardwood. It makes excellent manufactured and composite wood
products such a plyboo, laminated boards and beams, and oriented strandboard.
A forest of bamboo is harvested for wood on a yearly basis. By making lumber
of laminated strips of bamboo, native forests can be left for recreation,
water quality, and wildlife. If we plant bamboo we can farm our wood instead
of wildcutting it.
- Bamboo makes paper.
Bamboo has long strong flexible fibers. It is used for paper making in India,
China, Thailand and Brazil.
- Bamboo makes excellent charcoal.
It is the ultimate renewable fuel.
- Bamboo complements livestock
and aquaculture farms and sewage treatment plants.
Bamboo is an excellent plant to cycle wastewater from livestock operations
and municipal treatment plants. The cycle is simple. Livestock creates manure.
Manure is spread or sprayed on the bamboo which needs copious water, nutrients,
and humidity. The bamboo grows robustly. The farmers harvest bamboo shoots
and poles and sell them at a profit. Wlhen they harvest poles they feed bamboo
leaves to livestock. The leaves of bamboo are delicious to livestock. Depending
on variety and time of year the protein content is 15 to 20% while the fat
content is 2% to 4%.The higher values ocur in winter. Bamboo is a greedy,
hungry grass that thrives on summer water, high humidity, and copious nitrogen.
Water from manure lagoons and fish ponds are therefore excellent fertilizer
for bamboo.
- Dwarf bamboos would make excellent
sod roofs.
Evergreen bamboo leaves remove CO2 and pollutants from the air twelve months
of the year unlike other sods. Would it not be wonderful to dispose of treated
wastewater right in the city on sod roofs? If all major buildings had a bamboo
sod roof, American cities would be cooler in the summer and have cleaner
air. Seattle calls itself the Emerald City. It has grey roofs and black streets.
If roofs were planted with dwarf bamboo, Seattle would in fact be the Emeradl
City.
- Bamboo is easy to control on
a Pacific Northwest farm:
- With Livestock. Surround bamboo with pastures.
Livestock will graze every shoot that comes within reach.
- With Water. Plant bamboo next to water. The
water will block it. Bamboo needs well drained soil.
- With Gravel Roads. Plan bamboo next to a travelled
gravel road. The compacted soil and wheels wil control
the rhizomes.
- With Native Forest. Plant bamboo next to Pacific
Northwest native forest. The native trees are taller
than bamboo and are adapted to summer drought. The trees
will shade the bamboo and out-compete it for moisture.
- With Rhizome Pruning. Plant bamboo where you
can drive around it with a tractor and cut the spreading
rhizomes each fall with a plough or tiller. Bamboo rhizomes
spread in summer and remain juvenile into fall.
- Bamboo fits the labor schedule
of the diversified farm. Diversify your existing
operations with bamboo and help keep your labor force
busy year round. Harvest shoots in late spring. Sell
them fresh when harvested or freeze them and sell them
when convenient and profitable. Harvest poles in winter
or in summer right after shoot harvest. Sell the poles
green or store and cure them.
- Bamboo grows on level or hilly
ground.
Plant bamboo on the fields unsuitable for row crops. Plant it on hillsides,
along roads, as windbreaks, along drainage swales, in fields damaged by winter
floods, and wherever shade and privacy are needed. Let poultry run in it.
- Bamboo attracts attention.
A bamboo forest planted along frontage road advertises the proucts of the
farm.
- Bamboo is a natural air conditioner.
In summer a bamboo grove is ten degrees cooler inside than out.
- Bamboo provides wildlife habitat.
Birds and other wildlife like to rest and feed in a bamboo grove.
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