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Moso Shooting 2017

March 25, 2017 tarzan Comments 3 comments

Winter

After unusually dry winter with almost no snow cover and two months of uninterrupted below freezing temperatures, spring came early. Due to lack of snow cover, soil got frozen down to 50 cm deep. That made me think that Bamboo shooting season will be postponed for quite some time. Fargesia Rufa started late and I believed my Phyllostachys bamboos will also need a bit longer to finally wake up. Moso proved me wrong.

Top layer of leaves got burnt, leaves below remained protected

Winter did some damage to the Phyllostachys pubescens ‘Moso’ seedling this year. Not as much as I would have expected, though. Despite being frozen solid, most of the canes survived with moderate leaf loss. North facing side survived almost completely undamaged while southern, more exposed side took quite some damage. Older, smaller culms got defoliated completely this year, which was a surprise to me, because I expected the older and completely hardened culms will have much better chances, compared to young and tall culms. Youngest culms from previous spring were not damaged until the worst cold hit us. Low temperatures around -15°C, sunny and windy weather with soil being completely frozen, managed to burn some of the leaves. I can only guess how they would look like if the soil would remain thawed.

First shoots came early

To my surprise, I have found first Moso shoots on March 25th. That is the earliest Moso shooting date (well actually it’s a tie with season 2014) so far. Until this season, the first to poke out of the soil were always very small shoots that grew on the edges of the grove where I severed the rhizomes. Not this year. The first shoot I saw is already larger than shoots from last year. I accidentally exposed it when I decided to water the bamboo. When I looked a bit closer, I noticed more a bit smaller shoots on the western side of bamboo clump.

Three weeks of warm and sunny weather warmed up the soil and grass started actively growing. It didn’t take long for the first fruit trees to wake up as well. On the very same day when I noticed Moso shoots, apricots opened their flowers. Everything re-started in fast forward mode this year.

I have not noticed the second shoot until I checked the snapped photo.

One of largest shoots so far trying to reach for some light

Upsize

At first it didn’t look like there will be any upsize. Shoots were not as large and seemed more juvenile compared to the larger shoots last season. Eventually, they started getting thicker and started showing Moso specific features. It seems that last year, shoots started from deeper down in the soil, because I have added some soil and mulch around the bamboo during the previous year.
As the shoots started growing, it became evident, that there was some upsize, compared to last season. Like last year, there were many small(er) shoots that arrived earlier. I have left all the shoots intact, like in previous years. Smaller shoots can always be pruned off later on during the season, if the grove becomes congested.

Shoots have increased quite a bit this year

To compare the size of the shoots, I use 1 Euro coin

Spring freeze

The upsize in some parts of the clump was impressive

In late April, temperature plunged down to -5°C a couple of nights. Late freeze did a lot of damage to most of the fruit trees and completely defoliated walnut trees. We’ve had late freeze like this for two year in a row now – this year it got even worse than last year. The freeze, however, did no damage to the bamboo shoots. They were quite tall already at the time and for a while, I got really worried.
After the cold weather, we’ve had some warm rainy days again. Abundance of rain and mild weather (temperatures around 10°C) made the shoots grow much faster again. At that point it became evident that the number of shoots increased this year. Large shoots emerged throughout the whole grove, not just on the eastern side like in previous season. Majority of the large shoots, though, is still facing East.

I will update this post regularly until the shoots completely leaf out.

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Variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings – Winter 2016/2017

February 2, 2017 tarzan Comments 3 comments

First half of winter

In the late January, winter slowly starts fading, nights become shorter and days a bit warmer. We’re half way through winter! Since, I’m overwintering my variegated bamboo seedlings inside, they have no idea about our brutal winter outside. At this point, it seems, two of my Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings will gain in size a lot. The first and previously the largest seedling remained alive and still refuses to grow. For now, at least, it’s the smallest of three variegated seedlings. It grew many shoots as soon as I brought them inside and all but a couple of them died off and rotted. It’s getting better, but it lags more and more against it’s younger siblings.

Seedling #1

The oldest seedling, which grew quite well during last winter is not doing exceptionally well this winter. In the beginning, it was infested with aphids and it soon started losing even the youngest leaves. I decided to spray all three bamboo seedlings with insecticide to eliminate any possible pest I had brought inside. I also trimmed the seedling considerably, removing all the highly damaged branches, leaves and a couple of dead culms. At that point, it started shooting heavily, but ended up losing most of the new growth.

Eventually it started to look much better. It actually ended up being the only of three seedlings without the strange fungal infection. I have left old culms that were still alive and they soon started branching out. The leaves were miniature, but they showed nice variegation. On a couple of leaves, I could observe another type of variegation. Some leaves were not progressively turning from lime green to yellow-green gradient kind of variegation, instead, the variegation was present from the very beginning, (completely green) dark green stripes on yellow leaf. Like last winter, I have had difficult time preventing leaf tips from drying out. I’m still investigating what actually causes that issue as it sometimes appear on other seedlings as well. I’m almost sure it’s water or nutrient related.

Seedling #2

The weakest seedling that somehow recovered after being neglected for almost a year started strong from the very beginning. It merely had one shoot when I brought it inside, but it managed to push out one pretty large shoot. That single but large shoot used the energy from the previous stem, it died off when the shoot leafed out. The second seedling has shown incredible ability to survive and it actually grows much faster than the first seedling. To fight off the fungal infection I mentioned earlier, I regularly sprayed it with Aspirin dissolved in water. It looks like it’s working, the infection of the leaves slowed down considerably. Aspirin triggered another thing – growing branches and shooting. I’ve grown many bamboo seeds by now and I never used Aspirin. I have also never seen a bamboo seedling that would start branching out that much, or in the case of the third seedling – shooting insanely.

Seedling #3

Third seedling is shooting insamely — Third seedling is shooting insanely

The least variegated seedling ‘exploded’ immediately after I brought it inside. It also got infected by the same fungal infection as the second seedling. Fungal disease did not slow it down as it remained vigorous and looked strangely healthy, if I count out the darkening leaves. It produces a lot of green matter, which makes it heavy feeder. It shows signs of nutrient deficiency soon after I stop giving it daily dose of water soluble liquid fertilizer. After treating with Aspirin, it went completely insane, pushing out more than 20 shoots at the same time. At the same time, older shoots branched out on nearly all of their internodes. I can’t tell for sure if it was the salicylic acid that did the magic, but it sure look so.

The infection doesn’t seem to be spreading now, and the seedling looks even healthier. The seedling showed three types (perhaps I could call them stages) of variegation. There are some completely unvariegated green leaves. There are loads of seemingly unvariegated leaves with a stripe on the edge of the leaf blade. Stripe sometimes have gaps of unvariegated leaf tissue which makes the stripes look a bit fuzzy. Some leaves have more pronounced stripes that appear in the middle of the leaf as well as on it’s edge. Lately, I am able to see leaves with same kind of progressive variegation as on the previous two seedlings. Strangely, it only appears on some of the shoots and they then have the same kind of variegation through the whole culm. Perhaps that could show chimeric nature of the seedling?

More than 20 shoots at the same time must be the new record

It’s much darker than other seedling’s variegation, it looks very similar and it also ‘grows’ progressively from more uniform lighter green color. Darker parts get darker while leaf matures and paler stripes get lighter green. These stripes are never (so far) yellow, compared to other seedlings, which makes the leaves look healthier.
I am not sure if these variegations will change with time, if one of them will become dominant or just fade out eventually.

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Broken winter dormancy …

January 23, 2017 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

We’ve had quite cold and very dry winter so far. Most of the pots outside dried out completely during the dry, cold and windy weather. I needed to thaw some of my bamboo seedlings that were completely dry. Temperatures plunged below freezing even during the day, so I placed the containers into the basement. My initial plan was to keep them in somewhat warmer place, water them, and take them out when the weather warms up at least a little bit. It did not warm up soon enough for them. I noticed elongated leaf buds and branches on most, if not all my bamboo seedlings. Bamboos and my blueberry cuttings decided to leave the winter dormancy behind and start actively growing.

If I would not water them, they would dehydrate completely, but when I took them inside, I unintentionally broke their dormancy cycle. They only needed about a week of warmer temperatures to start showing signs of growth. When I wanted to finally take blueberries out, I’ve noticed their swollen buds that were already green. They were just waiting to burst open and start flowering. The fast growing Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedling from last year was also fully awaken.

Temperatures outside will remain below freezing for quite some time, and I’ll not be able to place them outside until at least late March. They will have to remain in the basement for at least a couple of months with only minimal available light. I intend to take them outside whenever weather allows me to. If it warms up enough, I’ll leave them outside as long as possible, until it cools off well below freezing again. Breaking dormancy, not the best thing to do during such a cold winter…

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Bamboo fungal infection?

January 6, 2017 tarzan Comments 5 comments

Temperature outside dropped considerably, and I’m afraid that some of my less hardy bamboos will get completely toasted this year. In late fall, I have taken my variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings inside for overwintering. In just a week or so, I have noticed dark spots on some of their leaves. All the plants seemed to have been affected, but the issue seemes to be a bit different on the greener seedling. The darker, less variegated seedling started getting larger spots on it’s leaves. These spots appeared on old and on new leaves, young leaves seemed to be much more affected than the hardened ones. This seedling is overall happy and started shooting vigorously. New shoots are affected, but at this time, it seems like the infection is slowly fading out as new leaves take longer to develop the spots.

Upper sides of leaf surface are holding much better

Other two, more variegated seedlings, took the same time to develop tiny black spots all over the leaf. These are much less visible from upper side of the leaf and hit the bottom side first. New leaves appear healthy at first, but when they age to a month or two, they start getting dark brown. Bottom side of the leaf gets hit first with just a couple of brown spots, eventually, it spreads all the way to the leaf tip and through the leaf to the upper side of leaf. I have cut off all the leaves from the largest seedling at the very beginning, when I first saw the issue. It doesn’t show any issues for now, but it grows really slow. It shows signs of recovery. I thoroughly sprayed all the seedlings with insecticide and it didn’t do much good.

Bamboo grows vigorously despite the infection

When I took the seedlings inside, they all started growing rapidly. All of them started shooting and don’t really seem to be bothered by their infection. Especially the greener form started acting like the super-aggressive seedling from last winter. I keep temperature around 21°C – 25°C, relative humidity around 45% and around 16 hour light cycle. They have a fan nearby, which makes sure there is always some airflow. I will leave the seedlings inside for the winter and keep an eye on them. If they start to decline, I’ll bath them in fungicide, if not, I’ll wait for the spring to come and thoroughly spray them before planting them outside the next season.

Did any of you ever noticed anything similar on any of your bamboos? Hopefully I can identify the bamboo fungal infection, so I can get rid of it before the spring.