Effects of Harvesting Age and Felling Cycle on Shoot or Culm Production of Bamboo

News source: The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development
For further information, Decipulo, M.S., L.E. Tiongco, L.D. Agne. Effect of harvesting age and felling cycle on shoot and culm production of Bambusa blumeana, B. vulgaris, and B. blumeana var. luzonensis. Highlights 2001, PCARRD, Los Banos, Laguna 2002, 209 pp., 2002-03-01

Study of Three Bamboo Species

Three bamboo species (Bambusa vulgaris, Bambusa blumeana, and Bambusa blumeana var. luzonensis) were tested for their regeneration or reproduction capacity. Specifically, the study tried to find out the effects of age and felling cycles on the reproduction of shoots or culms in bamboo. The experiment used the Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replicates.

Number of Culms with Annual Harvesting

Results of the study showed that B. vulgaris and B. blumeana var. luzonensis reproduced more culms if three-year old culms were harvested each year. In contrast, B. blumeana reproduced more culms if three-year old culms were harvested at two-yearly intervals.

However, for B. blumeana, yearly harvesting of three-year old or older culms resulted in more surviving shoots or fewer dead shoots compared to harvesting cycles. For B. vulgaris, yearly harvesting of culms lessened the number of dead shoots or there were more regenerations, consequently, a greater number of culms were harvested.

Culm Diameter with Annual Harvesting

In terms of culm diameter, it was found out that annual harvesting produced bigger bamboo shoots or culms among the three species tested.

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