Improving and maintaining productivity of bamboo for quality timber and shoots in Australia and the Philippines

Philippines

Professor David Midmore
Phone: 07 4930 9770
Fax: 07 4930 9255
Email: d.midmore@cqu.edu.au

• Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory, Australia
• Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development, Philippines
• Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia, Australia

$549,476

01/01/2001 - 31/12/2003

01/01/2004 - 31/03/2007

Mr Les Baxter

Annual world trade in bamboo is worth about US$4.5 billion (not including subsistence use). More than 80 per cent of the 1200 bamboo species, and most of the area in which bamboo grows, is in South and Southeast Asia. Only one species exists naturally in Australia and this needs further investigation for its plantation and food potential. The tall, straight bamboo stalks, known as culms, are used for timber or for paper pulping, while the fresh shoots are edible and widely used in some Asian cuisines. Newer uses are also being found, such as bamboo charcoal. Bamboos also offer good control of erosion on steep tropical land. Harvesting culms must be carefully managed. Inappropriate exploitation (for example, over-harvesting, especially of young culms) has depleted stands and resulted in a declining supply of timber in some places - particularly the Philippines.

After harvesting, fungal attack and the attentions of the powder-post beetle can cause damage to the product, particularly if the harvested culms contain starch. However, the starch content varies during the year. Harvesting when starch content is low will help minimise post-harvest losses, and research is needed to find out when this happens. The depletion of tropical forest reserves in the Philippines has caused a decline in wood production there, and an increase in the import of wood products. Part of this trade deficit can be alleviated and further deforestation prevented by substituting wood with bamboo. This is particularly important in poorer regions of the Philippines where the plant's shoots have the potential to improve human nutrition. The project is concentrating on maintaining and improving the productivity of existing bamboo stands through informed management, emphasising the production of constant high quality shoots for consumption, high productivity in managed plantations, and rehabilitating degenerated stands.

The work is divided into four sub-projects, which will run in parallel. In the first, the team will attempt to rehabilitate existing aged and/or damaged bamboo stands to make them productive for both shoots and timber. One experimental site will be in the Northern Territory, and two in the Philippines. The scientists will examine the effect of cutting culms at different ages and rates, and examine the growth characteristics of plantations of Australia's only endemic bamboo species, Bambusa arnhemica.

The second component will concentrate on maintaining high productivity where it occurs in existing bamboo plantations The productivity of rehabilitated stands will be compared with plantation bamboo.

In the third sub-project, scientists will research the efficiency and quality of bamboo timber harvesting, monitoring the starch content of standing culms of different age to determine the optimal harvest time. Culms with varying amounts of starch will be stored and the extent of post-harvest damage will be monitored.

The fourth sub-project is concerned with the use of bamboo for greenhouse carbon credits, for environmental protection (erosion control on sloping land) and for pulping. Biomass accumulation, nutrient cycling, soil respiration, production of edible shoots and timber quantity will be measured throughout the project. Along with soil quality and erosion rates, these data will be used to quantify carbon sequestration and other environmental benefits, and to analyse potential markets for these benefits and for pulping.

Outcomes for this project are currently being prepared