Bamboo: an herb that you can use as wood but that grows up to 50 times faster.

In North America and Europe, hard and soft woods have traditionally been used for framing, floors and doors of houses, as well as to make furniture. The problem with using trees for construction is that they take between 20 and 100 years to mature, which means that large tracts of land must be set aside for many years between timber harvests.

An excellent alternative to using hardwoods and softwood is to use bamboo.

Unlike hardwood and softwood trees, bamboo grows very fast and can be harvested in just a few years as they grow up to 3-4 ft / day (1.5-2.0 in / h), with growth rates of 3-6 inches per day. being common due to a unique rhizome system and depends on local soil and climate conditions.

Bamboo is already important to East and Southeast Asia, where it is used in gardens, as a building material, and as a food source. Bamboo can survive in various climates, from cold mountains to hot tropical regions. Bamboo is already found in the southeastern United States and there are several species that can be grown in the northern United States and Canada. There are already 35 species of bamboo that can be used for pulp and paper instead of trees. Bamboo grows in many sizes, from small one-inch diameter poles to large 12 “diameter bamboo that grows 100 feet (30 meters) tall in just 3 to 4 years.

Treated bamboo is a very hard wood that is lightweight and very durable, and can be used to make or build houses, fences, bridges, bathrooms, walking sticks, canoes, tableware, furniture, chopsticks, food steamers, toys, bicycles, scaffolding. construction, as a substitute for steel reinforcing rods in concrete construction, hats, and martial arts weapons, including fire arrows, flamethrowers, and rockets. Omachron has developed a series of environmentally safe treatments to preserve bamboo for use in construction.

Harvesting bamboo for wood requires care to select mature stems that are several years old, as the first-year stems, while full-size, are not fully developed and are not as strong as the more mature stems.

Bamboo can also be carved for decorative artwork and made into flooring. Bamboo flooring is made by steaming the pieces by flattening them, gluing them together, and then sanding and finishing them. The only caution about bamboo is that it is easily infested with wood-boring insects unless treated with wood preservatives or kept very dry.

Bamboo can be used to make paper and the fibers can be used as yarn and fabrics. Bamboo fabric is soft and has natural antibacterial properties. Clothes, sheets, and towels made from bamboo are a great natural item and are available from Omachron OnLine. [http://www.omachrononline.com]. Bamboo has gained increasing popularity in the culinary world as a cutting board material, as they are tough enough to withstand years of knife abuse, but more forgiving of the knife blade, causing less damage to utensils. sharp with time.

You can plant bamboo in your own backyard throughout much of North America and the wood and fibers can be used for everything from small building and carving projects to simple fences, decorating and paper making and crafts with your kids. For more information, subscribe to Omachron OnLine.

Some skateboard and snowboard manufacturers, as well as surfboard builders, are beginning to use bamboo construction. It is lighter and stronger than traditional materials and its cultivation is respectful with the environment. At least one snow ski manufacturing company, Liberty Skis, now uses bamboo construction for these reasons.

Bamboo is also used to make enclosures in fish farming, where cages can be made with a wooden frame and bamboo lattices.

Bamboo has great potential as a fiber resource for pulp, paper, and clothing, and may be an excellent low-impact agricultural opportunity in the near future.

Bamboo and switchgrass are also excellent fuel crops when used with the Omachron plasma combustion system to generate power in generators, space heating, and vehicles.