A request was made to cut down moso bamboo growing on a slope in Yokkaichi City.
We were mainly cutting down bamboos growing on the slope, which had become difficult to manage over the years. The roots of the bamboos alone are not expected to function as a soil retention system, so we cut down the trees while leaving the native trees in place.
Some bamboos can grow to 20 meters or more if left alone. Japanese bamboo species include madake, moso bamboo, broken bamboo, onna bamboo, and black bamboo.
Bamboo grows by underground stems called chikakei, which grow like roots in the ground. It is very labor intensive to remove the roots by hand, and because of their strong reproductive capacity, it is important to be able to properly manage the bamboo after it has been cut down and maintained.
Bamboo trees can be cut down from their roots, but the nutrients stored in the underground stems will cause them to grow back, so there are several methods for maintaining bamboo groves, including rooting out the underground stems with heavy machinery, cutting the parent bamboos to 1 m in January to April, which allows the nutrients stored in the underground stems to be used up and kill them, and creating a thinning zone 1 to 2 m wide around the bamboo to prevent them from running wild. After maintenance, it is important to continuously take bamboo shoots to manage the area.