Big Bamboo
Smith, president and CEO of Bradenton-headquartered Rizome, believes he can turn bamboo into big business in Florida – if he can get enough farmers to plant the crop.
Once enough farmers get on board, Rizome plans to turn Florida bamboo into construction materialby building an oriented strand board facility, which could generate $400 million in revenue per year and employ hundreds of people.
Already a farmer in Hendry County has planted 100 acres to test how the plant grows in Florida's sandy soil. Another farmer in Florida will plant 1, 000 acres in 2022.
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The tallest of the bamboo already in the ground in Floridahave reached heights of 40 feet in 12 to 14 months, according to the company.
The bamboo species Rizome has chosen to grow in Florida can reach heights of 100 feet. While bamboo could make Rizome big bucks, the plant also has benefits for the environment.
Farmers that grow bamboo could also sell carbon credits to companies looking to offset some of their carbon footprint. That's in addition to it reducing the need to cut down forests by providing an environmentally friendly alternative.
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While the Sunshine State is known for its oranges, many species have been impacted by citrus greening caused by bacteria spread by Asian citrus psyllid, an invasive insect.
A Rizome spokeswoman said that Florida's citrus acreage declined another 3% in 2021 to 407, 347 acres, the fewest acres growing oranges in Florida since at least 1966.
Still, Shelley Rossetter, assistant director for global marketing at the Florida Department of Citrus, said the state’s signature agricultural crop provides a $6.7 billion economic impact to the State of Florida and supports 33, 000 jobs.
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Paul Meador, a citrusgrower and member of the FloridaCitrusCommission said the citrus greening problems began in the early 2000s and have made the future uncertain.
He pointed to a couple of species of oranges that have been less impacted by citrus greening, while noting if you can harvest your crop, there's still money to be made growing oranges in Florida.
It's a business he's been in his whole life. And his father before him. And his father's father before that. Meador is a fourth-generation orange grower. His son also is a citrus grower, making it five generations that the Meador family has grown citrus.
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He's spoken with Rizome officials before and believes they have a good product. But he said he's hesitant to move on from a business he knows well.
He points to other issues in the agriculture business. Growing oranges is labor-intensive and like all businesses in recent years, it's been difficult to meet labor demands.
Florida's minimum wage will in the next couple years grow to $15 an hour. And there are other farms in other countries with much lower wages, he said.
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Smith said growing bamboo is less labor-intensive than citrus and moreeconomically advantageous. He plans to partner with farmers across the state to eventually reach 100, 000 acres of bamboo.
It would take just 16, 000 acres to reach the scale needed to start competing with other wood products in the construction business.Pablo van der Lugt Biobased building specialist TU Delft - AMS institute | Board member Built by Nature | Owner Green Matters Consultancy | Author Tomorrow's Timber & Booming Bamboo | Gideon
From a botanical point of view, bamboo belongs to the grasses, the Graminea, and is therefore not a tree. Bamboo is a collective name for a group of botanical species. Although the complete taxonomy of bamboo is still evolving, current estimations are that around 1500 different species of bamboo exist. There are considerable differences between species in size, color, node distribution and configuration, mechanical properties and climatic preferences. Some giant species reach up to 30 m with cross sections of up to 30 cm per stem, whereas some species do not reach above 1 m in height and 1 cm in diameter. Depending on the climatic circumstances, there can also be a lot of variation in size and quality of bamboo stems from the same species. Stems are larger in fertile, moist climates and smaller in dry sandy climates.
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In general, bamboo stems are hollow (although some solid species exist), with separate sections at irregular distances formed by transverse diaphragms in the cavity of the stem. These diaphragms are visible on the wall of the stem as ring-shaped protrusions and this is also where the branches with the leaves sprout from, usually from the higher nodes. Bamboo plants have a root system consisting of underground parts called rhizomes from which the stems grow above the ground. The rhizomes anchor the plant to the soil and supply it with food and water to produce new rhizomes. One single bamboo plant therefore has multiple stems. The extensive rhizome network also helps to hold soil and restore water tables, making bamboo very suitable for reforestation on poor grounds. Unlike a tree trunk, the bamboo stem does not grow in thickness. The thickness of the sprouting shoot determines the thickness of the mature stem as cell growth only occurs in longitudinal direction. The various sections of a mature bamboo stem are already present right from the start and extend from each other like the tubes of a sliding telescope.
Sprouting Bamboo of Moso Bamboo (Phyllostachus Pubescens) in China; the stem will keep the same diameter as the sprouting shoots (photo credit: MOSO International)
One of the most interesting features of giant bamboo is its unsurpassed growing speed. During the growing season, the bamboo shoots will sprout from the ground and reach their final length of up to 30 m height within a couple of months, with a maximum recorded growing speed of up to 1 meter a day. In fact it holds the Guinness World Record of fastest growing plant:Bamboo holds Guinness World Record for Fastest Growing Plant http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/fastest-growing-plant/
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Lignification (hardening of the stem) occurs within 2-3 years while maturity is attained after about 5 years, which is the moment the stem is ready for harvesting and for use in durable products in the building industry. Because of its fast growth, the bamboo plant absorbs a large amount of CO2 from the atmosphere, providing oxygen in return, which is locked for a long time not only in the plantation but also in the high number of semi-finished materials produced from harvested bamboo (annual yield, see also chapter 4 in Booming Bamboo).
Although the common perception is that bamboo mainly grows in Asia, its growing area is actually evenly distributed around the globe. Giant bamboo species, which have the most potential for industrial processing and economic development, mainly derive from (sub)tropical areas, usually in developing countries or emerging economies. China (7 mio ha) and India (9 mio ha) have the largest stocks of bamboo forests, totalling more than half of the 32 million hectares of bamboo available worldwide. In Western countries bamboo is mostly used as a garden plant and for landscaping.
The best-known giant bamboo species is probably the Phyllostachus Pubescens (up to 15-20 m long, 10-12 cm diameter), from China, where it is called ‘moso bamboo’). It is the backbone of the Chinese bamboo industry. Other well-known giant bamboo species are Guadua Angustifolia and Dendrocalamus Asper, which grow in tropical regions, both known for their enormous size (up to 25 meters high with a diameter of up to 22 cm) and good structural properties. Guadua is known in particular for its strength.
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Tropical bamboo species, such a Guadua Angustifolia from Latin America, are clumping species, which means that compared to ‘running’ bamboo species they do not spread quickly (picture credit: Pablo van der Lugt)
One bamboo plant consists of several poles and new shoots will grow from the mother plant every year. In general 20-25% of the poles in a bamboo forest or plantation can be sustainably harvested annually without decreasing the size of the plantation or the number of poles per hectare. The plant does not die after harvesting. On the contrary, by harvesting the mature poles, the yield and quality of the plantation actually increases. This means that bamboo is best managed as an agricultural crop, with an annual harvesting scheme, which makes it far less susceptible for clearcutting compared to wood with its long rotation cycles and long-term return on investment. Therefore by default a bamboo farmer will manage his bamboo plot sustainably, to ensure a steady annual income, preventing deforestation. For the same reason, forest certification to prevent depletion, is less required for bamboo as is the case for wood production.
In China, a bamboo farmer sustainably manages his/her own plot of bamboo for a steady and sustainable annual income (photo credit: Arjan van der Vegte)
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At the moment, the only benefit of introducing a chain of custody certification for bamboo would be that it helps safeguard social aspects in the bamboo industry. As many Western building projects nowadays demand certification for wood, this is often also demanded for bamboo (although it is not a wood), and since 2008 bamboo is included in the FSC® certification system.So you have yourself a nice piece of land, with ample sunshine and adequate rainfall. And you’re finally ready to plant some
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