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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.

In the end, leaf becomes almost completely brown, turns yellow and falls off.

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Recent photo

December 21, 2016 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

Recent variegated Phyllostachys arcana 'Luteosulcata' seedling — Recent variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedling

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Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedling update (10 months)

September 12, 2016 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

With the summer nearly over, I decided to write a follow up about the largest Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedling. This summer was quite dry and sunny, yet without any scorching hot temperatures. Most of my potted bamboos were not too happy about the drought and strong sun, and the leaves started to look a bit worn out. Shaded bamboos and bamboos planted in the soil were not as affected.

Despite the fact that the soil in the pot regularly dried out, the seedling remained happy and only wilted leaves when it dried out too much. I placed it into a white bucket to protect it from soil overheating. Since the last update, when the seedling got transplanted into larger pot, things didn’t change much. Whip shots leafed out and another set of whips emerged in early summer, with A LOT of rhizome activity all over the pot. Until recently there was not much to see, except for the dense mesh of rhizomes on the soil surface. Well, it’s not just the surface! It’s clear now, that small bamboo never ceased to push out rhizomes and it managed to get somewhat root bound again. There are rhizomes circling on the bottom of the pot and there’s even the first escapee. The vigor of the seedling is just insane. It got overwatered in the spring and under-watered in the summer, full sun caused it to wilt a lot and to be fair it looks quite pale at the moment. It doesn’t seem to care about its above ground appearance, though, it’s working hard as ever underground. I need to find it a new home. As soon as possible.

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Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings at 5 months

March 13, 2016 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

First couple of Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings are now 5 months old. They grow fast and perhaps started showing some of their growth characteristics. Most of them are low and bushy, but two of them started to have much taller appearance with less branches and perhaps a bit longer internodes. Soil, fertilizing / watering cycle and light intensity are the same, which should eliminate possible environmental differences. The soil mix was made in the same bucket, but there could always be slight content difference.

Dense roots help it drain the water from container on the bottom of the pot

All the seedlings have started showing signs of nutrient deficiency with yellow stripes on their newly grown leaves. I started introducing them to diluted liquid fertilizer which somewhat helped with the issue, but not entirely eliminated it. Water consumption of the fastest growing seedling is unbelievably high. I water them once daily and always leave some of the water in the bottom container, which allows roots to get the water from there as well. If I only skip one day, I get curled-up bamboo, with completely dried out substrate. I early lost two large seedlings, which are still recovering.

Soil was pushed up, out of the pot, because of all the roots.

Currently, the largest seedling is also the tallest one. At one point this seedling started growing tall shoots with culm diameter comparable to other seedlings that were only half it’s height and enormous leaves (again – large for it’s size and age). Most of the seedlings are now 20 cm tall and the tallest one is over 40 cm. Largest leaves are up to 15 cm long with yellow striping that indicate nutrient deficiency, which is most likely caused by very fast growth in a rather small container.

All the shoots are choosing to get back into the soil

The large seedling started pushing out 14 new shoots that are all eager to turn back into the soil. The shoots are growing into all directions and they certainly look like whip shoots to me. If rhizome growth actually started, it would explain the lifted soil that is getting pushed upwards almost daily. I will need to up-pot the seedlings before they get completely root bound. Heavy thirst drains water from the soil in about a day, which means any neglect would result in loosing the seedlings.

Bamboo decided it's time to run — We’re crowded here guys, let’s RUN!

There are no signs of either leaf nor culm variegations on any of the Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings from that batch, except for the highly variegated one, which is growing slowly and often shows signs of stress. Its first couple of leaves on young culms seem to be the palest, sometimes almost completely yellow, those leaves are extremely susceptible to drying of leaf tips. Issue might also be caused by unnaturally strong grow light and will disappear when I plant it outside. The second batch of seedlings seem to have given another two variegated seedlings, one has the same kind of variegation as the one mentioned above, but is at least 30% greener and should have faster and more healthy growth. The second one is even darker green and might be inverse version of those two yellowish seedlings – this one shows yellow variegation on green leaf.