Everything You Need to Know About Hybrid Bamboo

Here at Panda London, we’re big fans of bamboo and we love sharing that passion with you. And there’s so much to it – like hybrid bamboo, a new(ish!) type of species making waves in the world of horticulture, which we’ll be talking about in this blog post.

Creating a bamboo hybrid has many benefits, both for the environment and the economy, as well as having so many practical uses. Are you ready to learn everything you need to know about hybrid bamboo? Let’s go!

What is hybrid bamboo?

A bamboo hybrid is any type of bamboo which has been created by mixing (or cross-breeding) two or more species of the plant. The most common is the triple hybrid bamboo created by Professor Zhang Guangchu of the Guangdon Forestry Research Institute in Guangzhou, China, who has 40+ years of experience in the field to date. This species is a mix of three existing ones: Dendrocalamus laitflorus, Dendrocalamus daii and Bambusa textilis. The plant does well in tropical locations, and has a rich yellow colour thanks to the Bambusa influence.

Hybrid bamboo varieties are created by using cross-breeding innovations; later in this blog post we’ll dive a little further into exactly how this works.

Benefits of hybrid bamboo

There are many benefits of these hybrid plants. One major benefit is that they have brilliant carbon sequestration abilities; bamboo is able to harbour atmospheric carbon dioxide, which in turn reduces the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere itself. This is beneficial for combating climate change.

There is huge potential for commercial use when it comes to bamboo hybrid plants; here at Panda London, we use them for mattresses and pillows, but they can also be used for flooring, furniture, and even biomass power. This makes bamboo cross-breeding hugely practical, especially as the plant is fast-growing in nature and one of the most eco-friendly and sustainable materials available.

Because it grows so quickly, a bamboo hybrid gives us so much more raw material to work with – this means more companies will be encouraged to use it as a viable option for creating products which are gentle on our planet. A win win!

How to grow hybrid bamboo

Bamboo can be propagated easily, and most elite strains will retain genetic characteristics even after vegetative propagation – they are also unlikely to lose these despite a change in growing conditions. The way to grow hybrid bamboo is to hand-pollinate various species of naturally flowering plants, particularly those which are open-flowering in nature. The elite offspring created from this process is then used for mass vegetative propagation.

It takes a lot of time and dedication. Most hybrid bamboo varieties require the same conditions as solo species; a lot of bamboo types love moist but well-drained soil which is *slightly* acidic, for example. It is important to understand the favoured conditions of the two (or more) original species you are using in your cross-breeding innovations.

Challenges with hybrid bamboo

One of the biggest challenges horticulturalists have when creating hybrid bamboo varieties is lack of synchronisation when it comes to plants flowering. On top of this, many bamboo species have very long flowering cycles – sometimes lasting over a hundred years – which is why it’s so important to perfect the method of premature flowering.

Hybrid bamboo: in conclusion

Sustainable plants like bamboo hybrids are such an important part of the future of the textile industry as well as in wider production; the benefits, including how eco-friendly hybrid bamboo varieties are and how fast they can grow, are incredible. Hybrid bamboo is definitely a solid choice when looking for a raw material for your next project or new business!