Bamboo

It is 2018 and we've kicked off the year by starting our bamboo windbreak. We've picked a small area to start with and will make this wider than the rest of the windbreak. It will double as a nice mini bamboo forest with a path that leads to a small clearing. The species chosen is Gigantochloa pseudoarundinacea cv. Gombong Batu. The main species recommended for windbreaks is Bambusa oldhamii, but the max height of this (18m), which is usually less in Australia, is not really tall enough for my needs. The species chosen (Gombong Batu) gets to 30m, theoretically, so is more appropriate. It is also good for structural use and has a pretty good edibility rating also. Depending on the performance of this area, we may continue with this species for the remainder of the windbreak or fall back on B.oldhamii.

The soil is quite compacted and full of clay, so we've added gypsum and compost to the holes, measure which will hopefully be sufficient to allow the bamboo to grow well. The plants have also been innoculated with mycorrhizal fungal spores, and the bottom of the planting holes sprinkled with biochar. Once planted, around, but not directly on top, Dynamic Lifter pellets have been sprinkled and the bamboo is sheet mulched for a 1m radius with newspapers and thick layers of lucerne mulch placed on top. Hopefully this will be enough to keep the grass at bay until the plants become self-mulching (with their allelopathic leaves).

I also couldn't resist purchasing 4 plants to kick off our bamboo plantation. This will occupy a North-facing slope on the Southern part of the property. There is a large dam between it and the house which will act as a firebreak, although if you maintain your bamboo it shouldn't be too much of a fire risk. The plants selected were Dendrocalamus asper (two different cultivars - the Indonesian clone and Betung Hitam, a black culmed variety), which produces very large and sweet shoots for eating. Eventually the plantation will also have D.latiflorus and Nastus elatus, with potentially a few other species for fun, but the D.asper and D.latiflorus will comprise the majority of plants. Row spacings of approximately 7m will be followed to allow passage of a tractor if need be. The rows will also be oriented slightly off contour with parallel ditches leading down hill and each plant surrounded by a basin connected to the ditch. The idea is that a solar pump will pump water from the dam up to the top of the slope and into the ditch which will feed water downhill into all the basins one at a time, overflowing and continuing onto the next one, until it reaches a spillway at the bottom and ends up back in the dam. It may be an idea to plant more vegetation, possibly a reed bed filter system, below the bamboo so that the high nitrogen runoff can be filtered before re-entering the dam.