Bamboo produces new canes (culms) in the Spring. These shoots emerge out of the ground and grow in height and diameter for around 60 days. During this 60 day period, it will produce limbs and leaves.
After the 60 day period of growth, the bamboo cane never grows in height or diameter again. Bamboo doesn’t experience secondary growth like trees or most flora. It will put on new foliage every year, and a cane typically lives for 10 years.
Bamboo is a member of the grass family. It is a colony plant, so it uses energy from this existing plant to produce more plants and expand the root structure. The new plants will grow in the same manner. New shoots emerge to turn into a cane with limbs and leaves within a 60 day period.
Bamboo takes about three years to get established. Once established the new shoots that emerge in the Spring (they will still only grow for 60 days) will continue to get bigger and more numerous from year to year as the colony grows towards maturity. It takes a varying number of years (4-15) for different species to reach their maximum size. This is dependent on species selection, soil, sunlight, climate and watering conditions.
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In this brief documentary we take a look at some of the incredible properties of bamboo. Bamboo is a miracle plant that can be made into a limitless amount of useful products.
Bamboo, (subfamily Bambusoideae), subfamily of tall treelike grasses of the family Poaceae, comprising more than 115 genera and 1,400 species. Bamboos are distributed in tropical and subtropical to mild temperate regions, with the heaviest concentration and largest number of species in East and Southeast Asia and on islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans. A few species of the genus Arundinaria are native to the southern United States, where they form dense canebrakes along riverbanks and in marshy areas.
Bamboo has many uses, mainly in construction (flooring, roofing designing, and scaffolding), furniture, food, biofuel, fabrics, cloth, paper, pulp, charcoal, ornamental garden planting, and environmental characteristics, such as a large carbon sink and good phytoremediation option, improving soil structure and soil etc.
Houses, schools and other buildings
According to UNESCO, 70 hectares of bamboo produces enough material to build 1000 houses. If timber was used instead, it would require the felling of trees from an already diminishing forest. Today, over one billion people in the world live in bamboo houses.
Roads and bridges
It is being used in road reinforcements in India and it is also used in bridges built in China, capable of supporting trucks that weigh as much as 16 tons.
Medicines
In China, ingredients from the black bamboo shoot help treat kidney diseases. Roots and leaves have also been used to treat venereal diseases and cancer. According to reports in a small village in Indonesia, water from the culm (the side branches) is used to treat diseases of the bone effectively.
It’s the new hemp, it can be made into a strong and durable fabric a bit like canvas and can be made into all sorts of clothes. Additionally, bamboo fabric is breathable, thermal regulating, wicks moisture better than polyester performance fabrics, will resist odour and is absorbent and fast drying keeping you dryer and more comfortable than any cotton or polyester fabrics. Beware though: it is also made into Rayon in a chemical process that is unsustainable.
Accessories
It is also used to make necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and other types of jewellery.
Food
Shoots are used mainly in Asian food preparations. In Japan, the antioxidant properties of the bamboo skin prevent bacterial growth, and are used as natural food preservatives.
Why do we not see more Bamboo Architecture and Bamboo Design? Bamboo—the Tradition of the Future is a survey of the uses of bamboo in contemporary architecture . The film shows the opportunities for using bamboo in modern design and also illustrates the challenges the material faces. The film invites us to meet some of the most interesting ‘bamboo whisperers’ of today: architects and designers who have developed unique and thought-provoking solutions using bamboo as a material for the future. With a growth rate of up to a meter/day—the world record of living plants—and structural properties equal to that of steel and concrete, bamboo is a versatile design material and an interesting alternative in the contemporary material/sustainability discourse. Over 1,250 species are known, varying from small to giant. Bamboo is found in varied biotopes—cold mountains, hot tropics, and arid deserts. Furthermore, bamboo is a good alternative to facilitate biological carbon sequestration. “Bamboo’s fast-growing attribute makes it a very useful resource to capture and sequester atmospheric carbon and consequently mitigate climate change, in a similar way that tree does. The unique growing capacity makes bamboo a valuable sink for carbon storage”. Bamboo, in spite of its many advantages, has long-standing difficulties in gaining serious momentum and awareness in mainstream design practices. The small-scale nature and the peripheral cultural and geographic position of the bamboo industry has made it hard for bamboo to make its voice heard. The knowledge of bamboo is today mostly concentrated in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Dr. Campbell Drake says “Architects from the developing world are leading the industry in terms of innovation, but it would be great to see it being exported to other parts of the world” . This is echoed by the bamboo pioneer Dr. Kristof Crolla who notes that “Some of the knowledge, some of the drives that they [places outside the trendsetting metropolises] put on the table can be exported back into the west as well” . And what is true for architecture is equally true for the design of daily objects.
I have been wanting to buy a sofa set but the desired ones typically cost over 10k RMB. Last week, I found the bamboo sofa set that my grandpa made a long time ago, so I decided to try to make a brand new set. Items made from bamboo around this season, for example, a back basket, a chair or a rack, would not form bugs. I have made a back basket, a folding fan, and a sweeper once, but never a sofa set. I made a lot of mistakes, fortunately, I managed to make an arhat bed, an empress chair and a tea table. I am extremely happy and have a big smile on my face since I just saved a ton of money.
Ecuador: Outstanding initiatives that are part of the value chain of bamboo
Bamboo forestry, Bamboo Farm (also known as bamboo farming, cultivation, agriculture or agroforestry) is a cultivation and raw material industry that provides the raw materials for the broader bamboo industry, worth over 72 billion dollars globally in 2019
In this video I’m showing you 35 genius and amazing uses for bamboo! None of these ideas are mine; I just wanted to show you what some amazing people have done with theirs to give you all ideas on what you could do with yours!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN1bl8Dun-I
Traditional bamboo weaving is the ancient people’s work and wisdom. Cutting bamboo , splitting bamboo and weaving bamboo strips, it’s wonderful to make bamboo into useful crafts, like magic.
Bamboo Processing
Columbia: Guadua Bamboo Colombia is specialized in growing and exporting the World’s Strongest Bamboo. We ship construction grade bamboo poles worldwide and currently supply retail distributors in both Europe and the United States. For much more information please visit: http://www.guaduabamboo.com/
Bamboo processing and its fastest, most satisfying and surprising machines – Amazing Machines Incredible Bamboo Cutting and Processing Machines Powerful modern technology for wood cutting and processing machines The content of our videos is for entertainment and the information contained is for you to know what is happening on the screen and has some educational value.
Incredible Bamboo Processing Factory, Amazing Modern Automatic Wood Processor Production Factory
