Originally posted by Cirio
My first post. I have a thought and I need to get it off my chest. Bamboo - love the plant.
I'm looking to buy a small plot in the Mulege valley above the river. It's not big but I'd image it's in the flood plain. I've visited Mulege in the
past but didn't stay long. Reading and looking at all the images of the devastating hurricanes followed by flash-floods, I can certainly see it hit
the community hard. Being a plantsman I was figuring out the various plants I'd grow. Bamboo came to mind, possibly from this post or just because
I've grown several species and cultivars over the years. I started looking at the google map for the plot and then started looking at the whole valley
and realized property borders have a line of some shrubs/small trees/etc. I wondered how hard it would be to have property borders with bamboo in a
10' wide strip with bamboo barrier to keep it in check. Would locals be interested/willing to plant bamboo for a diversified crop?
The bamboo would provide an easy to grow building material (with irrigation) and also provide soil stabilization during flash floods as well as
capture floating debris/prevent debris from damaging homes, etc. A wall of bamboo sorta acts like a sieve and reduces the speed of water. Species
selection would be the most important thing and I can see timber bamboo along the rivers edge to prevent erosion and reduce the speed the river
spilled it's banks.
Ok, it's just an idea. I certainly don't know Mulege, politics, topography, people, etc but I do know bamboo and would know the technique to bring a
project like that to fruition. It might provide an additional agricultural product for sale within Baja. Hopefully someone will atleast consider this.
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