Iron Bamboo General Information

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		Iron Bamboo General Information

Iron Bamboo General Information

Fencer Says: "Iron Bamboo" is the common name for the genus and species Dendrocalamus strictus. Native to India, it is unique in that it is thick-walled, often solid, and known to be one of the strongest bamboos in the world. Click title for more information.

Fencer Says: Experts agree that Iron Bamboo is the world's premier bamboo for furniture manufacturing, since unlike thin-walled, hollow bamboo, it does not split when fastened with screws and nails. Its "nailability" and the fact that it does not develop external surface cracks as it dries make it a preferred structural material for buildings and fences, as well as for furniture. Solid Iron Bamboo can be cut into rectangular or square shapes to form lumber without lamination such as the sapstain flat-topped tables in our furniture line.

Iron Bamboo is a giant grass which flowers, goes to seed and dies approximately every 60 years. Yucatan Bamboo obtained some of this seed in 1994. Plants grown from seed reach full size in about seven years, possibly reaching a height of 60 feet and producing culms at maturity of four to five inches in diameter. Iron Bamboo grows in clumps of six to eight feet in diameter. It is a sympodial bamboo and does not "run" underground as do monopodial bamboos common to the temperate climate. Within these clumps, culms "shoot" each rainy season emerging from the ground in their full-sized diameter. When shooting, culms often grow as much as a foot each day and develop 85% of their strength in the first year. At the end of the second year, the culms have achieved 95% of their ultimate physical properties.

Clumps of Iron Bamboo at Hacienda Xixim are planted along old stone roadbeds originally built in the 1850's to support narrow gauge railroads. Today these roads wind through a sea of green bamboo swaying in the breeze over a carpet of bamboo leaves. We follow careful management procedures in order to determine which culms are ready for cutting. After the rainy seasons, we mark the culms that have "shot" in a particular year with colored plastic ribbon, i.e., 1997, blue; 1998, yellow; 1999, white; etc. We tie hundreds of thousands of ribbons each year.

Different sections of the plantation are managed under different growing conditions, shade, water, fertilizer, thinning practice, etc. By noting the number of ribbons used in each section, the effect of the different conditions on the number of culms per clump can be determined. For best results, Dendrocalamus strictus grown in Yucatan must be watered. The automatic irrigation system at Hacienda Xixim pumps approximately 1500 gallons per minute through six-inch pipes from an aquifer that flows beneath the hacienda, emptying into the ocean to the north.