Bamboo: a grass that you can use as wood but grows up to 50 times faster

In North America and Europe, softwoods and hardwoods have traditionally been used for home framing, flooring, and doors, as well as for making furniture. The problem with using trees for construction is that they take anywhere from 20 to 100 years to mature, which means large tracts of land must be committed for many years between timber harvests.

A great alternative to using hardwoods and softwoods is to use bamboo.

Unlike hardwood and softwood trees, bamboo grows very fast and can be harvested in just a few years, growing up to 3-4 ft per day (1.5-2.0 in/hr), with growth rates of 3-6 inches per day. being common due to a unique rhizome system and dependent on local soil and climate conditions.

Bamboo is already important in East and Southeast Asia, where it is used in gardens, as a building material, and as a food source. Bamboo can survive in various climates, from cold mountains to hot tropical regions. Bamboo is already found in the southeastern United States, and there are a number of species that can be grown in the northern United States and Canada. There are already 35 species of bamboo that can be used for pulp and paper instead of trees. Bamboo grows in many sizes, from small one inch diameter poles to large 12″ diameter bamboos that reach 100 feet (30 meters) tall in just 3 to 4 years.

Treated bamboo is a very hard wood that is both lightweight and highly durable, and can be used to make or build houses, fences, bridges, toilets, canes, canoes, tableware, furniture, chopsticks, steamers, toys, bicycles, construction scaffolding, as a substitute for steel rebar in concrete construction, headgear, and martial arts weaponry, including fire arrows, flamethrowers, and rockets. Omachron has developed a series of environmentally safe treatments to preserve bamboo for use in construction.

Harvesting bamboo for timber requires care to select mature culms that are several years old, as first-year culms, although full-size, are not fully developed and not as strong as more mature culms.

Bamboo can also be carved for decorative artwork and made into flooring. Bamboo flooring is made by steaming pieces, flattening them, gluing them, and then sanding and finishing them. The only caution about bamboo is that it is easily infested by wood-boring insects unless it is treated with wood preservatives or kept very dry.

Bamboo can be used to make paper, and the fibers can be used as yarn and fabrics. Bamboo fabric is soft and has natural antibacterial properties. Clothes, sheets and towels made from bamboo are a great natural item and are available at Omachron OnLine. [http://www.omachrononline.com]. Bamboo has gained increasing popularity in the culinary world as a cutting board material, as they are tough enough to withstand years of knife abuse, yet more forgiving on the knife blade, causing less damage to sharp utensils. over time.

You can grow bamboo in your own backyard in much of North America and the wood and fibers can be used for everything from small building and carving projects to simple fencing, decorating and paper-making, and crafts with your kids. For more information, subscribe to Omachron Online.

Some skateboard and snowboard manufacturers, as well as surfboard builders, are beginning to use bamboo construction. It is lighter and more resistant than traditional materials and its cultivation is respectful of the environment. At least one snow ski manufacturing company, Liberty Skis, now uses bamboo construction for these reasons.

Bamboo is also used to make enclosures in fish farming, where cages can be made with a wooden frame and bamboo lattices.

Bamboo has great potential as a fiber resource for pulp, paper, and clothing, and may be an excellent low-impact agricultural opportunity in the near future.

Bamboo and switchgrass are also excellent fuel crops when used with Omachron’s plasma combustion system for power, space and vehicle heating.