That's fine, we turned lemons into lemonade! I cut out the 4-6' canes at the rhizome/root level, cut them down to 2-3 feet, and put each of them in 3 gallon pots with potting mix. The objective, of course, is to create bamboo that could be sold to someone (or planted all over P2's new ag zones that we're pondering). There are about 10 pots which are now in the process of propagation.
Here's the timeline I'm going to be watching for:
Year 1
Early March: Canes cut out of ground and place in pots. Keep watered.
April/May: Each pot puts out 1-5 new canes which continue to reach height all summer
August/September: Hopefully we get a few more late summer canes in each pot
Year 2
Early March: Watch size of pots; if root bound, repot to larger pot.
April/May: More canes
Aug/Sept: More canes
Also during year 2, the year 1 new canes will explode into leaves at each joint up the culm (our culms from last year's 100+ Emerald canes are leafing out right now like crazy).
The big question is: When would these pots be ready to sell? I'm guessing that they could be sold at the end of Year 1.
Local prices: 3 gallon Emerald, $95. 7 gallon Emerald, $175
Conceivably, cutting out 10 culms casually per year produces $1000+ income.
Cutting out 100 culms per year produces $10K+ income.
Not bad!
