Dendrocalamus Asper

DENDROCALAMUS ASPER

Dendrocalamus asper is also known as Rough Bamboo or Giant Bamboo is a giant tropical and subtropical dense clumping type of bamboo native to Southeast Asia. This timber bamboo is used as a building material for heavy construction, and shoots are consumed as a vegetable.

The giant bamboo is also one of the fastest-growing plants in the world, with an average reported growth of 3 to 10 centimeters or cm per day, and can even grow to as much as 100 cm in about 24 hours, depending, of course, on the local soil and climate conditions.

• Type: clumping bamboo
• Origin: Southeast Asia
• Height: 15m – 20m
• Diameter:  8cm – 12 cm
• Position: full sun or partial shade
• Soil: sandy, loamy, and heavy soils but prefers well-drained
• Rate of growth: fast-growing
• Hardiness: -4°C
• Names: Dendrocalamus asper, Rough Bamboo, Giant Bamboo

Dendrocalamus Asper Cape Town

Younger bamboo trees are covered with fine velvety brown hairs. The nodes are swollen; younger nodes have many aerial roots while middle and upper nodes have branches. It is widely cultivated for its highly valued culms that are used as a building material and its shoots that are used as vegetables.

Upper internodes of the culm are used as containers for water or to collect juice being tapped from palm inflorescence. It can be grown from rhizomes, culm, or branch cuttings.

Giant Bamboo Preferred Temperatures

Giant Bamboo prefers low relative humidity and average annual temperatures between 20 ° C and 30 ° C, but can withstand extreme temperatures (as low as -4 ° C and as high as + 45 ° C). Optimal annual rainfall is 1.000 to 3.000 mm, with 300 mm per month during the growing season.

Planted or naturalized from low elevations up to 1,500 m. Dendrocalamus asper thrives best at 400-500 m altitude in areas with an average annual rainfall of about 2,400 mm. They grow well on various soil types, even on sandy and rather acidic soils, but prefer well-drained heavy soils.

Growth and Development

As in any large tropical bamboo, the shoots of Dendrocalamus Asper (Giant Bamboo) emerge above the soil during the rainy season and develop to their full height in less than a year. However, in exceptionally brief rainy seasons the growth ceases and will continue when the next rain starts.

The lateral branches develop when the culm reaches its full height. A culm becomes mature in 3-4 years. A good healthy clump can produce several shoots annually. Initially, a young plant raised from a lateral branch cutting will produce small shoots which will develop into small culms. The culms produced later are larger than those produced from previous years. Full-size culms appear five or six years after planting.