 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-12-28 11:55
Arundo Donax is nasty, invasive and downright explosive. The powers that be are doing their best to wipe it out entirely (at least in California). At least we have the Irish bagpipers on our side. http://tinyurl.com/yzazz3
Ken Shaw
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2006-12-28 12:10
Maybe clarinet mavens could do California a favor and run out and harvest the stuff!--exploit the species into oblivion. Might be interesting to try make-'em-yourself reeds with a free source of lots and lots of otherwise unwanted arundo donax to waste on failed experiments.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2006-12-28 12:35
Lelia -
You could set some up as a scratching post for ShadowCat. Destroying anything clarinet-related will give her the greatest pleasure, and Dickie V could nest inside the tubes. ![[rotate]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley25.gif)
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2006-12-28 12:38
(Disclaimer - plant patent holder for genetically altered Arundo Donax - Musicalis)
It is a matter of scale - often wild cane stands will yield very poor quality, for single reeds, stems but managed test plots (2.5 M square) will yield more than 20 kg/year of useful cane which is enough for several players for years of making their own reeds. The California situation is many thousands of hectares but selective harvesting would not decrease the invasive nature or improve the quality (for clarinet reeds) of the cane. The underground rhizome must be killed to eradicate the plant and the cane culms must be harvested more or less carefully and processed almost immediately to yield good reed cane. There is no "free lunch" in the cane business.
L. Omar Henderson
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Author: Escsrc
Date: 2006-12-28 18:16
They should just sic the entirety of the BBoard on the "problem areas"
To be serious though, I think it might be worth it to look into getting ahold of the cane they have to chop down; if they're just going to trash it/furnace it, they might as well have someone else take it off their hands, right?
I guess my idea to "grow my own" isn't so crazy after all!
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2006-12-28 18:42
I grow Arundo Donax and some specimen bamboo species in my back 40 and, depending on the species or variant, they can be winter hardy (some to - 20 degrees F) but the bamboo spreading species and AD need about a 30 inch below ground barrier to keep from spreading throughout your own yard and your neighbors too! My AD - Musicalis is winter hardy to -10 F and grows abundantly here in Atlanta - many AD (eg Med. AD are not winter hardy - ob cit the great cane freezes of the 1920's and 1950's).
L. Omar Henderson
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2006-12-29 12:36
Omar, I know what you mean about those invasive rhyzomes. My neighbor across the street puts piles and piles and piles of unwanted bamboo out for the brush pick-up truck every spring. He's been trying to get rid of the stuff (planted by the former owner) for years, but can't use herbicides in his yard because he's got dogs and he's uphill from a daycare center where little kids play on the ground right behind his bamboo problem.
If he has to have this problem, I wish he had an arundo donax infestation instead of the bamboo, though sometimes I make incense at home and therefore do scrounge his bamboo piles for the thin whips I use as the cores of incense sticks. I haven't found any bamboo out there that looks worthwhile to try for reeds. The grain is too loose, coarse and uneven.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2006-12-29 13:02
I have some specimens of "clumping" bamboo which are very well behaved and just increase in height and girth but do not send out underground rhizomes far from the central plant. Many bamboo species and Arundo Donax on the other hand multiply by sending out these underground rhizomes and they may pop up 3 meters from the last culm stem. Killing the top growth above ground does nothing to stop the underground invasion and new plants can spring up anywhere along the length of the rhizome. Without potent herbacides it is a formidable foe to eradicate and digging up the length of the rhizome is a treasure hunt of large scale. Part of the work of cultivating Arundo Donax is maintaing rows with access to irrigate, fertilize, and move people and wagons down a path between rows.
L. Omar Henderson
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Author: chipper
Date: 2006-12-29 14:24
Couldn't we simply ferment the stuff to ethanol and either use it to fuel our transportation to gigs, or perhaps directly fuel the musicians?
C
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2006-12-29 15:03
Chipper,
you mean "root beer" made out of AD rhizomes? ![[toast]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smiley15.gif)
--
Ben
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The Clarinet Pages
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