Water Wheel Sept/Oct 2022: Crop Water Use

Abstract

Water use study points to potential of bamboo in South Africa Panda bears chew it up like rugby fans munching on droëwors. Some of the world’s first firearms were fashioned from it and it’s the key material in a host of biodegradable consumer goods, from kitchen spatulas to toilet paper. Bamboo, with its relatively strong resistance to breaking, remains a mainstay of construction in the East. Around the globe, people are increasingly looking at cultivating this versatile member of the grass family. In South Africa, there’s growing interest in bamboo as a building material and a fuel source. South Africa’s indigenous forests are few and far between. Heavy harvesting means there’s little firewood to go around and erosion has depleted soils leaving them less able to store water to support life. What if bamboo was cultivated at scale here, particularly on land already degraded by agriculture? It matures in six or seven years and produces new shoots at the base of the plant every year.

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