[Greenbuilding] [BULK] Re: Plybooboo

Fri Feb 9 09:30:25 CST 2007

I'm in the same boat.  If I tried to live only off of local products my
family's diet would consist of corn and soybeans, with a few fresh veggies
in the summer.  Also, I could only dream of a house built with any type of
hardwood, pine, bamboo or steel.

International trade is not inherently bad.

On 2/9/07, Lawrence Lile <LLile at projsolco.com> wrote:
>
> Hear Hear! That's why I'm so interested in bamboo.
>
> Yes, promoting native species is a great idea, however not something that
> should be engaged in as a purist.  I can say that having dined on oats
> native to Europe, wheat bread native to Turkey, and soy milk native to China
> just this morning.  Had I stuck to species native to Missouri, I would have
> been eating cattails, acorns, lichen and catbrier roots.  I have eaten all
> those things, but I would not recommend it as a steady diet.
>
> There are plenty of useful and interesting native species that need to be
> planted - I'm working on a whole yard full of them, but focusing on native
> species exclusively is ignoring the reality of the world we live in.
>
>
> Lawrence Lile, P.E., LEED AP
> -----Original Message-----
> From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org [mailto:
> greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of YankeePerm at aol.com
> Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 8:31 AM
> To: GREENBUILDING at listserv.repp.org
> Subject: [BULK] Re: [Greenbuilding] Plybooboo
> Importance: Low
>
> Just about everything you eat is non-indigenous.   This includes plants
> native to the Western hemisphere that were imported to new areas in North
> and South
> American by Native Americans.   If you eat only Sunflowers in Kansas you
> are
> OK.   This indigenous vs. native issue is one of the most bogus confusions
> I
> have to deal with.
>
> I have treated the issue of bamboo extensively in previous posts on this
> list
> and the articles are doubtless in the archives.   Since bamboo rarely
> reproduces by seed, the likelihood of spreading as a weed is much less
> than, say, a
> tomato, which is indigenous only to MesoAmerica.   Many temperate bamboo
> species do spread by runners.   This makes them less expensive to
> establish than
> clumping, tropical genera, though the tropical species include some of the
> fantastic timber bamboo species.   But with temperate species attaining 5
> inches in
> diameter and 75 feet in height, they are adequate for many structural
> applications.   The most commonly used temperate genus, Phyllostachys, is
> highly
> palatable to livestock, as has been mentioned this week, so control is a
> matter of
> a fence.   I've seen a huge grove of P. nigra Henon in Alabama stopped
> dead by
> a strand of barbed wire with cattle on the other side.   Mowing will do
> the
> same, as will moating.  One of the really rampant bamboos is actually the
> native genus, of which in North America we have one or two species
> depending on who
> is describing them.   A commonly used landscape species, P. aurea, is one
> of
> the most rampant in the world, hence the misconception that all bamboos
> are
> rampant.   Even so, a moat stops it cold.   I've planted it where I want a
> surefire screen.   However since there are 1500 species of bamboo, many
> with
> numerous varieties, you don't have to grow P. aurea to have bamboo, and in
> most
> climates where we would grow bamboo for construction materials, it is
> inferior to
> numerous other species and varieties within those species.
>
> If we are willing to grow fields of wheat or lettuce without cringing, why
> not have fields of bamboo?   The difference is that the bamboo has a
> chance of
> being sustainable, depending on how we manage and harvest it.   It needs
> no
> cultivation, little weeding (removal of invasive native trees, for
> example), and
> will produce indefinitely, probably longer that our species has left to
> reside
> on this bit of iron and nickel spinning around the sun.   If it is
> unmanaged,
> it will indeed 'invade' the forest, where it fills an empty niche as an
> understory woody grass.   As the forest matures, the bamboo may be shaded
> out,
> depending on species, but that is true of many species, native and exotic
> alike.
> If the forest weakens, or we have a tree plantation that can no longer
> canopy
> because it has been monocropped too many times, the bamboo may form the
> canopy.   So we can replace the unsustainable plantation with sustainable
> bamboo
> without ever clearing the land.   The pines are removed when they are
> ready from
> around the bamboo.   A bit of bamboo will be trashed in the process, but
> with
> a good strong mat to form new shoots, the damage is temporary and the soil
> is
> not damaged any further.
>
> If you want to have an even quicker return, one can run free-range poultry
> with bamboo to mutual benefit.   Of course, the   chickens are nonnative
> birds,
> so the robins should watch out!   Actually, the robins are going extinct
> from
> loss of habitat, which bamboo may actually replace.   In any event, it can
> substitute for removal of more habitat.
>
> Outside of Asia, the northern hemisphere temperate zone is deficient in
> woody
> grasses.   There is absolutely no valid reason why informed and practical
> introduction of species from comparable environments in Asia should not be
> undertaken. Indeed, there are plantations that have been in North America
> for
> perhaps nearly 100 years without overrunning the countryside.   Lets try
> to look at
> the matter a little more calmly.
>
>
> Dan Hemenway
>
> In a message dated 2/8/07 12:03:45 PM, bergman at cyberg.com writes:
>
>
> > Are there issues with Bamboo being a non-indigenous plant and
> threatening
> > existing eco systems? I'd thought that, because it is essentially
> rapidly
> > growing weed, it is hard to control and can potentially spread beyond
> farms and
> > overtake systems.
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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