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Re: Cane Crisis?

Author: mschmidt
Date: 2015-12-29 21:48

I'm aware that arundo grows as a plentiful invasive weed throughout much of California, and I once talked to a local oboist who uses the wild stuff here in San Diego County. But he said the wild stuff he found was quite soft, and that he had to compensate by making his reeds quite short. He also says he never uses cane unless it has seen at least a bit of frost--apparently it frost makes it harder, somehow.

My interest, then, is a little larger than just securing a personal source of cane, or growing it locally, as the climate may be a bit too warm. I am rather wondering whether a more extensive research project is in order to figure out what the crucial climatic and processing factors are in growing really good cane. I get the impression that there is a lot of local, proprietary knowledge handed down through the generations in the traditional cane-growing regions, in much the same that wine-producing regions in France used to have a lock on terroir and processing secrets. Agricultural and enological science have greatly expanded the range over which truly excellent wines can be produced; could the same be done for cane?

I think with the huge increase in global population over the last century, it makes sense that cane should be grown in a wider variety of locations, just as the global expansion in wine growing regions has served to supply the global population with wine.

Wufus' email to me included a link to his new cane business, which advertises a "new approach" to the cane business. If you google "new approach oboe cane" you can find it, with an alliterative business name and a location in the U.S. capital city. I think it is a good start to thinking outside of the box on the cane business, albeit a bit further along in the cane-to-reed process that I am interested in.

I apologize for the longish post, but I've been thinking about this a lot, and, with my background as a scientist, I have a bit of a restless mind when it comes to overcoming technical difficulties. I have no concrete ideas as of yet as to how to embark on a cane research consortium, and maybe the IDRS is a more suitable venue for such a discussion. But I was interested in whether people here had the same impressions of a "cane crisis" as I.

Mike

Still an Amateur, but not really middle-aged anymore

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