Farming Bamboo Increase Farm Income By Growing Bamboo

Farming Bamboo describes how to grow bamboo as a farm crop for shoots and poles in the warm temperate zones of the United States. The second half of the book is an encyclopedia of the larger Phyllostachys bamboos that are suitable for producing a sellable crop. Use the encyclopedia to determine which bamboos to plant on your farm or plantation. Chapters cover topics such as the botany of bamboo, selecting a site, how to source plants, how to design the planting area, soil and nutrition, irrigation, pests, control of rhizomes, harvesting shoots, harvesting poles, livestock fodder, marketing shoots and using shoots. Daphne Lewis had been a bambusero for 30 years. Dr. Carol Miles is a crop scientist working for Washington State University.

Daphne Lewis became fascinated by bamboo in 1981 when she realized that bamboo was a perennial grass that grew both food and wood faster than trees. She began the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Bamboo Society in the early 1980's. She founded Bamboo Gardens, the first bamboo retail nursery in Washington State, in 1986. Her business plan was "If I love bamboo, other people must also".; In 1995 her business partner took over the nursery so Daphne was freed to create bamboo not as a privacy hedge sold by nurseries but as a farm crop yielding food and wood. Her aim was eventually for there to be a bamboo industry providing carbon sequestration, fiber, and erosion control as well as food and wood. Dr. Carol Miles received her M.S. and Ph. D. from the Department of Fruit and Vegetable Science at Cornell University. She joined Washington State University in 1994 where she is the Vegetable Extension Specialist based at Washington State University Mount Vernon Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center. Carol specializes in vegetable production especially new crops, new varieties, and organic and sustainable production practices. She organized the logical sequence of Chapters.