As your bamboo groves mature, you will need to thin out surplus poles. These are the ones that lean out and into the roadway, the leaners in the grove, dead ones, crooked ones, broken ones, and ones smaller than the rest. Leave the best canes, thin out the poor canes. Your grove will be healthier and prettier.
Thin when you have time. Grove should already have been thinned before new shoots emerge. I like to thin after new shoots have grown for two months and have opened their leaves. That way I can see which canes crowd them and cut those canes out. Getting rid of these older canes gives the new ones space to get light to their leaves and branches.
You will have two results from proper thinning. The first is that your grove will be beautiful and healthy. New shoots have room to grow straight up and mature into healthy canes for future poles. The second is that you will have piles of poles lying beside your groves that you must deal with.
Green and fresh, these leaves are excellent fodder for livestock. If you have room to spread them to dry, you can make hay.
Most of us pile these thinned poles week by week as we thin. The pole pile becomes huge. Leaves turn brown and fall off. We rent a chipper a few times a year. The chipper creates amazing shredded bamboo mulch. We can sell this mulch and we can spread it back into our groves.
When your groves are mature with large poles you might make charcoal instead of mulch.
