1 Gallon Divisions of running Species

[Joseph Clemens]

Does anyone have experience producing one gallon viable divisions of various Phyllostachys species? I have been able to locate many commercial Bamboo nurseries that produce this size division - nearly all my various groves have been started with one gallon size divisions. I have been digging and potting divisions of my various bamboo, but divisions as small as one gallon have been extremely difficult or impossible to stabilize.

[BooNanners]

I transplanted my rubro to a better location and in the process ended up with a wheelbarrow of excess rhizomes which I then put in a prepared bed and 90% shot. I imagine 1 gal. pots would lend themselves to rhizome planting as anything in the ground becomes too large to put in a 1 gal. quickly.

[needmore]

Commercial 1-gallon Phyllostachys are most likely one of the following:

A Tissue Culture plant grown out from small trays
A small section bare rhizome grown out
A larger size potted bamboo that was rinsed off and pruned down into smaller sizes

If I wanted them I would do my early spring long section of rhizome laid on the ground and covered with dirt, mulch, etc. Then look for the ones that produced multiple new culms in late July or so I'd snip them to desired size and pot them - except I really wouldn't as the squat 5's are the smallest size I'll mess with.

[Joseph Clemens]

From what has been said, so far, I can see that the most likely scenario is that, one gallon size runners are most likely a way for growers to salvage material that otherwise might go to waste, and as a way for customers on a limited budget, such as myself, a way to afford increasing the variety of our collections.

A few seasons ago, in early Spring I would dig rhizome, then cut pieces to fit in one gallon pots - they were very reliable at putting up small shoots and quickly looking very vigorous and healthy, but, for some reason most or all would, after showing such promise, quickly perish. This happened three seasons in a row, before I stopped trying to produce one gallon divisions using this method. I am thinking that perhaps these short pieces of rhizome were becoming infected at their cut ends and that soon after beginning to grow, were being overcome by these infections, like a kind of "damping-off". I believe that I shall attempt this again, next Spring, by using an organic disinfectant, such as Physan or Consan and then sealing the rhizome ends by dipping in molten beeswax. I also wonder if "Bordeaux mixture" might also be suitable for such a purpose.

Needmore,
It is interesting that, as you mention, I have taken to laying Spring-dug sections of bare rhizome into shallow trenches and covering them with a thick layer of straw. I water to keep the straw damp and check every few days to find sections of rhizome that have begun to grow, then pot them up. Avoids potting up lots of rhizome that may never grow.

[ghmerrill]

Joseph,

I removed some Henon bamboo from a piece of property this spring, and aside from lots of LARGE divisions, there were TONS of rhizomes. Due to the time of year here, all the rhizomes had buds that were starting to swell, so I clipped those into one gallon size pieces, and potted them in one gallon pots. I potted up around 250, and thus far have around 175-200 that survived. I think that timing is very critical, the buds need to be swollen, yet not elongated- the shorter the piece of rhizome, the less energy for producing shoots, so geting it just as the buds are swelling allows for some extra energy to be produced by the plant, yet the buds are not far enough along to try for larger size growth, which I have found to cause them to abort, and the whole divison dies. Of the ones that made it, all are doing well, with very few weak, floppy culms that you see from very stressed rhizome divisions. The other thing I do is fertilize, fertilize, fertilize. My way of thinking, those tiny sections of rhiozme need as much food as possible, so I use a granular fertilizer on the top of the soil in each pot, and re dose it each month. the kind I have been getting is the Lilly Miller 16-16-16, which runs about $20 per bag around here.

[Alan_L]

... so I clipped those into one gallon size pieces...

What size is that exactly? Unless they're really thin rhizomes that you can bend around, it can only be about 3" long or so, right? Unless you're potting them vertically. Just curious about the details of it.

Not that I'll ever be potting up 200 of anything, regardless of how much extra rhizomes I have.

[ghmerrill]

most of them were around 8"- the same height as the pot. You hit it right, I put them in at a slight slant, from top to bottom, and then filled with soil.

[ShmuBamboo]

I have been involved with several commercial bamboo nurseries around here. What most high volume bamboo nurseries do is cut a section of rhizome that fits along the top of a one, two or three gallon size pot. Most large scale operations do one gallon divisions. One gallon rhizomes can be from 5 to 8 inches, and laid flat across the top (or looped around the top) about an inch deep. I have never seen nurseries do the slanted rhizome planting thing. Some types of bamboos do not propagate as well as others. Tissue culture is becoming more popular here. Generally nurseries buy flats of 100 baby tissue culture bamboos and plant them into flats or 2-4 inch pots, and size them up in the greenhouse.

[Arkansas]

I have been involved with several commercial bamboo nurseries around here. Tissue culture is becoming more popular here. Generally nurseries buy flats of 100 baby tissue culture bamboos and plant them into flats or 2-4 inch pots, and size them up in the greenhouse. Once the smaller plants size up they get potted up into gallon size pots. It can take a while to produce sellable size plants this way.

Do you know where a small commercial nursery can purchase flats of baby tissue culture bamboos? I have considered turning my hobby into a business. I looked at BooShootGardens catalog / pricing but didn't see attractive prices and nothing smaller than 1 gal. size, perhaps one has to ask about flats. Plus their numbers of species was quite limited - at least their offered ones were.

Peace

[needmore]

I have been involved with several commercial bamboo nurseries around here. Tissue culture is becoming more popular here. Generally nurseries buy flats of 100 baby tissue culture bamboos and plant them into flats or 2-4 inch pots, and size them up in the greenhouse. Once the smaller plants size up they get potted up into gallon size pots. It can take a while to produce sellable size plants this way.

Do you know where a small commercial nursery can purchase flats of baby tissue culture bamboos? I have considered turning my hobby into a business. I looked at BooShootGardens catalog / pricing but didn't see attractive prices and nothing smaller than 1 gal. size, perhaps one has to ask about flats. Plus their numbers of species was quite limited - at least their offered ones were.

Peace

You are on the right track with them, just contact them for wholesale account setup. They send me periodic email lists of their stock and prices and the flats are always on the list as well as large plants at decent prices. My issue with them is the minimum orders are well beyond me risking TC plant experimentation - something like $1,200 plus shipping.

[needmore]

Funny timing, I got their latest email today - they still have liners of 18 plants each, minimum of 54 or 3 liners plus the standard minimum order of $1,500.

[Arkansas]

thanks for the info