shoots that wont shoot

[dudley]

my B. textilis 'kanapaha' is aborting a lot of shoots this year.
of ten that broke the surface, only three will actually produce a culm.
slight upsize from last year, looks healthy, normal water.
???

[mantis]

Potted or planted?

*yes, I'm trying to buy time to come up with a real answer.

[Wills]

Dudley,

I'm not far from you and my Kanapaha is doing great, wins the award for best upsizing this year out of the 14 species I have. I purchased it from Roy as a single culm 18 months ago. It shooted well last year and this year after putting out a couple short culms it exploded with 5 30 foot high rockets. If you arer like us it was a wet spring followed lately by a dry summer though I do scoop lake water with the front end loader and give them a drink once in a great while. Have about 150 bamboos in the ground here and always hear about aborted culms but of all those bamboos I have only twice seen aborted culms and both were on multiplex. It can't be the soil as we are on sugar sand. I do mulch heavily with tree company utility line chips, fortunate enough to have one of the top executives of our electric company as a neighbor. I do fertilize some but not much....we are on a lake so the water table is probably just 5 feet down and perhaps the bamboo can reach that???? Here is a pic of the Kanapaha this morning.

[boolover]

I have had 6 shoots abort out of 13 on my B. textillis. The 6 good ones are strong and each about 2" in diameter. The plant was put in the ground in the summer of 2008 as a single 1.5" culm topped at 14 feet. No problems with B. textillis gracillis, and no problems with either my B. textillis mutabilis or kanapaha. I have had a few aborted shoots on some B. multiplex alphonse karr, and B. multiplex golden goddess.

After last winter, I'm thankful that a good deal of my bamboo seems okay, although the biggest disappointment is that the B. chungii (2 of them) are having a tough summer with skinny and weak culms. I sure hope this winter is warmer than last...

[dudley]

wills, yours looks like it gets alot of sun. mine is under an oak canopy. in a year or two it should be taller than the oaks and get more sun, maybe that will make the difference.

[Wills]

wills, yours looks like it gets alot of sun. mine is under an oak canopy. in a year or two it should be taller than the oaks and get more sun, maybe that will make the difference.

Dudley,

You could be right mine is in a very sunny spot. Some of mine are under the oaks and some in the open. I noticed yesterday 2 more culms just breaking ground so it apparently is not done yet.

[Mike Beard]

I had the same problem on my "Wamin" and found I had a fire ant mound it looked small on the surface but with a little mulch moved they were everywhere ant bait then kept it flooded with water and they either died or moved on but now I am getting some small shoots

mike