American Bamboo

  • Thread starter Deleted member 67076
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Deleted member 67076

Sort of a weird idea I've gotten.

Bamboo, for those who don't know, has a wide variety of commercial uses, including textiles, paper, food, medicine, etc. Its a versatile, easy to grow crop that is best of all perennial (meaning it doesn't need to be planted year after year) Additionally, its native range is in the humid subtropical climates of the planet, which America has.

So I'm wondering, could bamboo cultivation have ever taken off en masse in what is now the United States as a major crop for... whatever I suppose?
 

ben0628

Banned
I am from the Northeast part of the US and my grandma grows bamboo on her property. I remember as kids me, my brothers, and my cousins would build forts out of dried bamboo and have bamboo sword fights.... Anyways other than helping kids have a wild, imaginative childhood, I don't what American bamboo would be used for. Scaffolding? Torture (A tv show once told me the North Vietnamese would tie American pow's to the ground and grow bamboo underneath them and wouldn't untie them unless they talked)? Maybe grow bamboo in unpopulated areas and release captured Pandas into the wild? Im sure there is some good use we could have for it
 
Knowing about how well bamboo grows in the wild, could it instead end another kudzu if you brought it to the Southern US?
 
I could see bamboo instead of slash pine being a source of paperstock in the Deep South, buy why someone would start a program like that...maybe if the Transcontinental Railroad took the southern route, bringing Chinese railworkers into East Texas where the climate's right for it.
 
I could see bamboo instead of slash pine being a source of paperstock in the Deep South, buy why someone would start a program like that...maybe if the Transcontinental Railroad took the southern route, bringing Chinese railworkers into East Texas where the climate's right for it.



Bamboo flooring is widely available.
 

Deleted member 94708

Probably not; China uses it for everything because they completely deforested the country (to the tune of roughly ~3% forest cover remaining at the lowest point) well before the Industrial Revolution, with most of it being used for firewood and charcoal. Under those circumstances bamboo was widespread as a wood product simply because it grew quickly. The United States faced no such constraints until at least the 20th century, and sustainable forestry practices have become sufficiently widespread that US forest cover has stabilized at about 35% since 1910 or so.

China has recovered to about 21% at present, but the ecosystems involved are incredibly unbalanced and unhealthy as a result of poor planning and little to no understanding of recreating a sustainable forest; many "forests" are monoculture tree farms, and those planted in Northern China (Hebei, Beijing, and Shanxi) in particular are completely unsustainable as they drain the water table.

In essence, China needed and still needs bamboo as a wood product despite it being inferior to most other woods for most purposes; the United States did and does not and can afford to use better woods for almost everything from papermaking to furniture. Bamboo is a fashion statement in the US, not a necessity or an economy.
 
What about as clothing?

Could an early use of bamboo be a cotton substitute?

Maybe this would lead to a reduction or early abandonment of slavery?

I don't know when the manufacturing process made this feasible.
 
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And by that, I mean, Bamboo as a clothing substitute is more labor-intensive than cotton, and thus would lead to more slavery, not less.
 
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