Bamboo is the common term applied to a broad group (1250 species) of large woody grasses, ranging from 10 cm to 40 m in height. Already in everyday use by about 2.5 billion people, mostly for fiber and food within Asia, bamboo may have potential as a bioenergy or fiber crop for niche markets, although some reports of its high productivity seem to be exaggerated. Literature on bamboo productivity is scarce, with most reports coming from various parts of Asia. There is little evidence overall that bamboo is significantly more productive than many other candidate bioenergy crops, but it shares a number of desirable fuel characteristics with certain other bioenergy feedstocks, such as low ash content and alkali index. Its heating value is lower than many woody biomass feedstocks but higher than most agricultural residues, grasses and straws. Although non-fuel applications of bamboo biomass may be actually more profitable than energy recovery, there may also be potential for co-production of bioenergy together with other bamboo processing. A significant drawback is the difficulty of selective breeding, given the lack of knowledge of flowering physiology. Further research is also required on propagation techniques, establishment and stand management, and mechanized harvesting needs to be developed.

Bamboo: an overlooked biomass resource?

Bamboo is widely distributed in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As a major non-wood forest product and wood substitute, bamboo is of increasing interest to ecologists owing to its rapid ...

Carbon sequestration by Chinese bamboo forests and their ecological benefits: assessment of potential, problems, and future challenges

Various aspects of the growth and development of bamboo are reviewed,includ- ing growth cycles of plant parts,effects of aging on important plant tissues,uptake of water and nutrients,photosynthesis,storage and translocation of photosynthates and nutrients,and accumulation and partitioning of biomass and nutrients.Also discussed are how these aspects can be manipulated with agronomic techniques, such as management of standing-culm density,culm-age structure,leaf area,and leaf-age structure.Selected aspects of how the environment (i.e.,water availability), soil physical properties (such as slope,texture,bulk density,moisture-holding ca- pacity,and soil temperature),and soil chemical properties (such as pH,salinity,and nutrient availability)impact on bamboo production are outlined.This review also discusses how the environment can be managed with irrigation,terracing,tillage, covers and mulches,canopy adjustments,and fertilization with optimal amounts of nutrients,nutrient ratios,schedules,and forms of fertilizer.

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Aspects of bamboo agronomy.

Phyllostachys pubescens Mazel ex Houzeau de Lehaie is one of the largest bamboo species with a leptomorph root system in the world. The species originates in China and has been naturalized in the neighboring countries. It was introduced in 1746 into Japan because of the economic value of the young sprouts and culm woods. It escaped from the planted areas and expanded by invading the original vegetation. In order to clarify the basic ecological characteristics of the species, carbon fixation and cycling were determined in a stand of Phyllostachys pubescens. The standing culm density and average DBH in 1991 were 7100 ha(-1) and 11.3 cm, respectively. The above-ground biomass was 116.5 t ha(-1) for culms, 15.5 t ha(-1) for branches, 5.9 t ha(-1) for leaves and 137.9 t ha(-1) in total. The total above-ground biomass was one of the largest among the world's bamboo communities. The biomasses of rhizomes and fine roots were 16.7 t ha(-1) and 27.9 t ha(-1), respectively. Annual soil respiration was 52.3 t CO(2) ha(-1) yr(-1), the highest among those determined in Japan. The gross production was high: 32.8 t C ha(-1) yr(-1). Allocation of the products to its root system was also high: 34% to gross production and 46% to the fluxes out of the leaves into other compartments of the ecosystem. This resulted in the reduced above-ground net production of 18.1 t ha(-1) yr(-1), which fell within the average range of productivity of forests under similar climate conditions. This paper discusses the correspondence of the allocation pattern with the successful range expansion.

/pdf/net-production-and-carbon-cycling-in-a-bamboo-phyllostachys-51npoj57bl.pdf

Net production and carbon cycling in a bamboo Phyllostachys pubescens stand

Mast ﬂowering is the phenomenon of massive ﬂoweringand fruiting at intermittent intervals that is synchronizedwithin a species across large areas. Most masting speciesare iteroparous, ﬂowering and fruiting multiple times dur-ing their life span (Silvertown 1980). Bamboos are an ex-ception as mast ﬂowering is largely restricted to semel-parous species that ﬂower once and die (Janzen 1976).Additionally, whereas most mast-ﬂowering species pro-duce seed crops on a cycle of 3–7 yr (Silvertown 1980),bamboos have intermast intervals that are typically an or-der of magnitude longer.The earliest explanation for mast ﬂowering in bamboowas that of external controls on physiological processes byavailable resources such as rainfall (Brandis 1899), the re-source-matching hypothesis. Today, this bottom-up hy-pothesis largely has been replaced by top-down explana-tions involving pollinators and predators (Kelly 1994). Itis widely accepted that the selective force driving the ev-olution of masting in bamboos is “predator satiation”(Janzen 1976; Gadgil and Prasad 1984; Kelly 1994). Thishypothesis proposes that irregular fruiting cycles are suf-ﬁcient disequilibrium to inhibit seed predators from main-

Notes and Comments Mast Flowering and Semelparity in Bamboos: The Bamboo Fire Cycle Hypothesis

SUMMARY (1) In south-central Chile, bamboos of the genus Chusquea often dominate the undergrowth of the mainly broad-leaved rain forests, and where these forests have been burned or logged they frequently form dense thickets in which tree regeneration is greatly impeded. (2) Standing crop and above-ground net primary production were estimated for a pure stand of C. culeou at 700 m altitude, and standing crop for C. tenuiflora in the understorey of a mixed Nothofagus betuloides-N. pumilio forest near the timberline at 1040 m in the Andes. (3) Above-ground biomass of the Chusquea culeou thicket and the C. tenuiflora undergrowth was approximately 156-162 t ha- 1 and 13.0 t ha- 1, respectively. (4) The annual above-ground net primary production for the C. culeou thicket was approximately 10.0-1 1.4 t ha- 1.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2259412.pdf

T. T. Veblen

Papers

Dry-matter production of two species of bamboo (chusquea culeou and c. tenuiflora) in south-central chile