Strange growth of Moso seedling

[Tarzanus]

Few weeks ago, I've planted moso seeds and they germinated. All of them are now growing as normal bamboo plant, except one.

This seedling came out normally, it had normal sprout and after a while second shoot appeared next to existing one and the first one stopped growing. In about a week or two, it became similar to grass instead of bamboo.



Anyone familiar with "creatures" like this one? There were no other seeds in the soil, no grass of any kind. The stem of this grass-like plant is identical to other moso's sheat. It sure looks strange! I'll keep it and see if it gets normal.

[stevelau1911]

It might be some kind of ornamental grass seed that got mixed into your moso seeds.

[Tarzanus]

I doubt that. I'm pretty sure it's growing out of the same seed as originally perfectly normal bamboo shoot. Shoot aborted when this strange looking "grass" appeared. It's starting to grow faster every day. I hope it develops soon and hopefully starts shooting. If it makes normal shoots, this might be stress affected sprout or something. Newest leaf is wider than previous one. Unlike bamboo, leafs are growing for some time even after they unfold.

Seed was one of the fattest, most healthy looking ones from the batch. Since this supplier (unlike the last one with 0% germination rate) had very good quality seeds, I doubt they would have seeds from other species in the same package. Especially not moso size seeds. Soil was seed-free, I'm 100% sure there were no grass seeds in it.

Perhaps this is mutant. Moso pollinated by regular grass

[Tarzanus]

I've examined it again today. It's growing faster than other bamboos at the moment. I checked "normal" bamboo shoot and it does seem to be growing again. It appears to have small leaf tip emerging in the center.

Larger image

Leaf texture is not similar to other moso leafs, but it does have identical color. Well last leaf almost resemble bamboo leaf...

[Alan_L]

How do you know there were no other seeds in the soil?

[needmore]

That plant shows growth habits that would move it out of the bamboo family of grasses, so I am pretty certain that it is something else - either that or the leaf characteristics of bamboo need to be redefined as your plant shows the leaves coming directly off the central stem and bamboo 'branches' off from the other grasses by not doing that.

[Tarzanus]

How do you know there were no other seeds in the soil?

You can never know for sure, but out of around 30 pots, only few tiny red weeds appeared. I haven't used any garden soil or compost, that could have grass seeds in it. I didn't preheat the soil to kill all living things in it, before planting bamboo, but I've been using this soil for quite a while and usually it doesn't contain living plants before you plant them there.

It's in the same pot as another moso seedling. I'm going to transplant it eventually and check the roots.

It's growing much faster than any grass from around here. Could be ornamental grass like steve said, but, like I said, I doubt that. Hopefully internodes will start swelling soon, like on normal seedlings - if there are any .


Here are some older photos of the same plant.




First photo was taken just a few days after I've planted moso seed with one sprout into the soil. Day before that, only one sprout was out of the soil and that was tiny little non-growing bamboo-like shoot. It (almost) aborted few days later, as seen on photos.

[Tarzanus]

Needmore, I know that. I'm going to transplant it and check if it's connected to the seed that was sold as moso seed. I have around 30 more seedlings that are normal moso plants, one of them is starting to shoot. I've never seen anything like that. Well I did, I've seen grass .

[Tarzanus]

It must be grass. Parasitic grass that is.

It had many white roots, and it did not appear to be connected to the seed. I could take it out easily. Seedlings root seems dead.

What's the possibility that the only grass seed (root) out of 50 kilo bag of soil would appear basically on the seed of moso and kill it.


Case closed I guess, damn grass.

[Alan_L]

Fascinating!

The interesting thing is everybody was correct: it *was* a grass (not bamboo), and it also *was* bamboo.

[Tarzanus]

It seems I have few more strange looking pubescens.

On first picture, there's a siamese twin mutant. If by any chance it survives, I guess it will become normal. Second picture, leafs are getting yellow stripes. First two leafs were green, this one is 4 days old and isn't getting any greener than this. There are other seedlings that have yelow stripes, but there, it can hardly be detected. New leaf seems to have yellow stripes too. In a few days it should unfold. On third picture - I guess that's the reason for yellow stripes! There are seedlings that are almost completely yellow. I thought that the reason was in the soil, until I got these two - same container, same soil, different colors. Yellow fella seems to have smaller leafs, I hope that photosynthesis isn't going to be problem and it will survive. If color is different because of micro-climatic differences, I'll soon get all green little pubescens.

[Alan_L]

It could still be a nutrient issue. Perhaps the yellow plants are not very good as taking up nutrients.

I'm interested to see what they look like in a month or two.

[stevelau1911]

Moso has been the easiest bamboo to grow from seed for me. From seed they seem to gain size much faster than either heteroclada, or kwangsiensis, except the only problem is that this species is also the least hardy so they don't really hold up to our winters so they keep getting set back by top kill. As far as all my seedlings, I'm only planning on keeping 1 of each species after I grow them in pots for a while.

Here's just 1 of them. It's 1st shoot is nearly 1ft tall, and still growing, and moso can get taller than 3ft on their 1st season.


This is what you might expect from heteroclada at the same age. Very thin, and flimsy.


Kwangsiensis usually starts out making plenty of shoots, but doesn't upsize very fast. This one's working on it's 5th and 6th shoot already.

[Alan_L]

Steve -- by "upsize", you're talking about their first few months after germinating?

[stevelau1911]

Yes, I'm talking about the first 2-3 months after they germinate, moso is definitely the fastest, by far. After another year once they go through a dormancy period anything can happen.