Bamboo Farming: New Market To Be Tapped

Bamboo Farming: New Market To Be Tapped AG WORLD Ag World 21-2-21 If you live in an area with a reasonably moderate climate most of the year, an Oregon entrepreneur may have just the sideline business you're looking for. Tim Ogden of the Oregon Bamboo Co. in Myrtle Creek, Ore., says bamboo farming has the potential to become big business. "Bamboo comes into production in three years and reaches maximum productivity in seven to eight years, producing five to 10 tons of bamboo shoots per acre per year. We sell everything we can produce off our mature 3-acre grove and we'll be able to sell all the production from our second 3-acre grove, too, when it comes into production," says Ogden who discovered the potential for bamboo at a West Coast Asian produce market five years ago. Since then, markets have also developed for cane as an alternative wood and, most recently, as winter fodder for livestock. It has 20 to 21 percent protein. Ogden says he's virtually the only bamboo farmer in North America and distributors pay up to $2 per pound for his bamboo, which retails for about $6 per pound as food and wood products. One reason business is so good is that the U.S. bans imports of live plants in order to control bamboo thripe, an Asian insect pest. Bamboo farming is easy, says Ogden, in part because no tillage is required. He plants varieties that originated in Southwestern China. They're placed every 10 ft. in rows spaced 20-ft. apart. Plants are staked and supplied with a 25-5-5 fertilizer blend every two weeks during spring and summer, when trees can grow as much as 11 in. a day. Bamboo grows back every year, just like your lawn, he adds. Bamboo could be grown successfully in many parts of the U.S., he says. "It can survive a couple weeks of 10 be-low zero weather without too much dam-age," he says. Depending on the variety, bamboo ranges from 2 to 72-in. tall and measures 1/4 to 6 in. in dia., he says. Ogden's company offers informational packets, including a video on bamboo-growing, and samples. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Oregon Bamboo Company, 278 Taylor St., Myrtle Creek, Ore. 97457 (ph 541 863-6834).

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