Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Document your results with different mulches, seeds, mutations, TC or other experiments.

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stevelau1911
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Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by stevelau1911 »

Since my moso bicolor has started yellowing its leaves, my assumption is that the energy must be leaving the culms and going into the rhizomes. I ended up having 7 shoots emerge so far, 5 of them around the 1 inch mark. I doubt that this little plant can push 5 1 inchers + 2 smaller ones. I decided that I would gamble and attempt to produce 2 good divisions off 2 entire lengths of rhizomes by separating them from the mother plant. Another reason why I'm doing this is because with the proximity that these shoots are coming up, they would end up shading each other out a lot so I don't mind sacrificing 2 if them.

I decided to sever the entire length of the rhizomes off the mother plant that had 1 inch shoots. I also stripped all the culm sheaths off those 2 large shoots to halt their growth and hopefully try and let that bit of energy go directly back into the severed rhizome section.

If this is successful, those rhizome sections should end up producing smaller shoots to replace the ones that I am aborting on purpose. I know that those rhizomes are very well rooted and have plenty of viable shoot buds so I'm hoping that there is energy concentrated into those rhizomes, at least enough to push up smaller shoots.



This is just like taking rhizome divisions, except I'm making sure that the those rhizome sections have energy, and there shouldn't be any root shock. In a best case scenario, these severed rhizome sections can produce lots of little shoots. In a worst case scenario, they would simply rot away, and I will have ended up wasting 2 good shoots. If this is successful, then it will be a pretty good way to take divisions off bamboos which are stingy about producing viable divisions.
zxylene
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by zxylene »

I think you should have left the shoots on the rhizomes you cut. I did this with my alata to take two divisions and keep them from an area I didn't want them and the shoots simply shrank in diameter but still pushed up to be about 4 foot and 1/4 inch they were almost 1 inch shoots to start.
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by Tarzanus »

I would wait for the shoots to gain some height, then proceed with stripping them off to induce branch growth and only when the leaf growth would actually begin, severe the rhizome. Cutting rhizome without enough stored energy and without additional source can end up sadly. I've seen viridiglaucescens shoot coming out from well rooted rhizome division only to abort after a couple of weeks later. I guess a couple additional nodes of rhizome could help, but it would be 100% success if that shoot at least managed to branch out the first couple of nodes.
stevelau1911
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by stevelau1911 »

The only fear I have of leaving those shoots alone is that being a solid 1 inch in diameter, I'm just afraid that the rhizome doesn't have enough energy to push that huge of a shoot, even if it becomes dwarfed so all I did was destroy the meri-stem which triggers the shoot to shrivel up. They have already shriveled up so I'm guessing the energy has gone back into the rhizomes.

Another reason is that I did not want any apical dominance where 1 huge shoot prevents any other shoots from emerging. I'm betting on there not to be another large shoot under there so that many smaller shoots can possibly emerge instead which could result in multiple divisions. I don't know the exact measurement, but I think the severed rhizome sections underground are about 5 feet long so if there is no apical dominance, then multiple small shoots may be possible.

I also wanted to not let these(not as big) shoots do anything to take away from my big 1.25 incher which is on an entirely different rhizome because I want the mother plant to make at least one huge shoot.


I think they should each at least make 1 shoot each because those rhizomes are very well rooted, and never taken out of the ground to cause shock, but my gamble is to try and make them produce many shoots.
stevelau1911
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by stevelau1911 »

One of these severed rhizomes did produce a shoot, but the other rhizome seems to remain completely dormant, but it didn't do what I was hoping for. This bamboo does seem to prefer producing 1 large shoot as opposed to many smaller shoots.
Image

It's getting dwarfed because I have no idea how much energy there is in that rhizome, and I'm afraid that letting it shoot up at its full diameter could result in a shoot that grows half way and ends up flopping due to exhausting all the energy in its rhizome with no attachment to any culms.
stevelau1911
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by stevelau1911 »

Here's an update on the rhizome experiments. One of them actually pushed a decent sized shoot, but that ended up aborting regardless of efforts to dwarf it, but the other one produced a very small shoot which appears to be taking so I'm guessing that despite being 3ft long sections with plenty of roots, they were relatively young rhizomes that lacked the energy to do much.

I did however sever 2 rhizomes off both my dulcis and the atrovaginata by around 20 September of last year. They were approximately 30 inch sections. It appears that all of them have ended up rotting over the winter with the exception of one atrovaginata which managed to gather enough energy to put out 1 tiny shoot, under 1/4 inch in diameter which might actually take.

It's a little bit soft, but has a lot of rhizome to support it so I think it will at least survive, and perhaps make it up to 1ft tall.
Image

I actually ended up planting my gojis into this area, but if this little shoot makes it, I'll get it potted up which shouldn't harm the gojis since they are still tiny.


The objective is to get relatively small manageable divisions that can be potted up into 3-5 gallon containers, so maybe the severing should be done by around March depending on the species. When I did it with spectabilis, I was able to get fairly large shoots that were stunted in height from fall severings, but that species tends to spread its energy nice and even across all the rhizomes, even if the rhizomes are brand new.
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by needmore »

I've described here before a way to do this, take a long section of good rhizome in mid March or so, long as you can easily remove from the ground 4 feet or longer is best. Cut off the growing tip back to where real roots start or leave it sticking out as a handle, toss it on the ground and bury the section in potting soil, mulch, whatevs...buds should fire if/when they are ready and you should see multiple shoots if the section is long enough. Leave it alone for weeks - for me August or late July - until they look well developed and firm then just lift the whole thing out. You'll easily be able to see where to snip to pot up some divisions.
Brad Salmon, zone 12B Kea'au, HI
http://www.needmorebamboo.com
stevelau1911
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by stevelau1911 »

It sounds like taking off the rhizome tips can help you prevent apical dominance, and putting it into a compost pile can perhaps prevent the rhizome from rotting eh. Aside from spectabilis, it would be pretty hard to get 4+ft sections of rhizomes from around here unless I have a way to heat the soil, and make rhizomes travel much farther than they normally would.

It must feel great that your bamboos are already generating rhizomes. I think it won't be until August that my bamboos start their rhizome growth, and it is nothing in comparison to what you get.
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by johnw »

Steve - Surely you will get +4ft rhizomes on your Phyllos soon. We took 3-4 x 10ft ones off my friend's aureocaulis this spring and we still have more to do soon.
johnw coastal Nova Scotia
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by Alan_L »

stevelau1911 wrote:I think it won't be until August that my bamboos start their rhizome growth, and it is nothing in comparison to what you get.
I'd be really surprised if you don't have rhizomes growing already on some if not most species. In fact, some of them grow rhizomes even before shooting starts if I remember correctly, but if somebody could confirm that I'd appreciate it.
stevelau1911
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Re: Gambling with an experiment to make 2 good divisions

Post by stevelau1911 »

4ft rhizomes would be considered very short for an aureosulcata, but some of my typical fat rhizome species that take forever to fill up the starch capacity in their culms don't start pushing rhizomes until very late in the season, and the fatter rhizomes seems to make it difficult for them to get very much distance. 4ft rhizomes just wouldn't be feasible even with tons of pampering, or even if I added gypsum to something like dulcis which hasn't produced new shoots any more than 1ft away from existing culms going on its 5th season.

Some bamboos like atrovaginata usually make some rhizome growth before shooting season, but it typically pauses when energy is going towards shoots, and doesn't take off again, usually until shoots are done growing.
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