Im sure this might have been discussed before so excuse my ignorance
I have a few groves of assorted timber bamboo which still end up shooting smaller culms amongst some larger ones. Vivax, glauca, henon all seem to put up small sized stuff with the larger stuff. How much energy is wasted to produce larger culms next year by thinning out the smaller stuff? Is it worth it to keep the smaller stuff to get better energy storage for next year? All of the groves are not mature at all, mostly just three and four years in the ground. Surprisingly vivax has been really slow here, the root mass is a bit shaded but the culms streach high enough to give good photosynthesis. I was kind of thinking that if I cut out all the smaller culms then maybe it would trick the grove to produce only larger ones next year. So far sleep creep and leap hasn't played out with my vivax and this ones supposed to be quick to size up
Most of my boos are also currently in the ground for around 3 years and vivax aureocaulis is really spreading out.
Rather than removing small old culms wouldn't it make more sense to remove all small shoots that come up now?
I've started doing this with my nigra but intend to follow up with the other bamboos as well.
Currently I'm looking for a bit of spread so I am not too worried about thin/small culms on most of my boos until the space is starting to fill up nicely.
Older culms have a lot of energy stored in them so I am guessing it will impact the grove more than removing new shoots that are feeble or in bad locations.
Either way usually most of my bamboos throw up more shoots than they can sustain so I'd rather remove all the small stuff than have a bigger shoot abort halfway through.
Nicholas- I wouldn't say that its not sizing up, its more like being really slow to size up. Shoots today I noticed are between 1cm to 4cm but mostly on the smaller side of things.
Maybe I should do like you suggested and eliminate the smaller of the new shoots then. Mine also tho isn't really spreading so does this boo need some more leaf mass to generate energy for next year?
I generally leave any shoot that leafs out, , if it is where I want it, and leave it there until it is starting to decline with age. In the long run, biomass of the grove determines grove growth. My vivax grove used to sometimes put out shoots smaller than the years before, now it has been there over ten years, it puts out mainly bigger shoots.
