More Panda Food (2011/09/02)
   Beyond its economic value, botanists say, the ability to hasten forest regeneration may benefit the endangered giant panda, which feeds on the reedy plant in the fast-diminishing bamboo wilderness of northeast China. Scientists estimate that there are more than 500 species of bamboo in the warmer regions of the world.The most spectacular examples of the plant, a member of the grass family, are found at the southern and southeastern edges of Asia, where lush yet delicate canopies of bamboo reach heights of 130 feet.
   But the quirks of bamboo reproduction have made the plant almost impossible to cultivate or to improve selectively. Most species flower and produce seeds only once in their lifetimes, after growing between 12 and 120 years, the longest generation time over all in the plant kingdom. A forest of bamboo usually flowers simultaneously, a phenomenon called masting. And shortly after flowering, the forest dies en masse, often within a single season. Left behind is a blanket of seeds that can be 20 to 30 inches deep, setting the stage for new forest growth.
    Before flowering and perishing, a bamboo tree can also reproduce asexually, by sending up underground shoots, known as rhizomes, which are genetic clones of itself. Many bamboo forests consist largely of trees born of such shoots, and in China, rhizomes are planted to produce bamboo stands that can be harvested.
   But neither of the bamboo's reproductive methods allows for standard agricultural manipulations. Because the normal seed generation time is so long, botanists in the past have been unable to mix together the genes of different plants and to cull superior offspring; a researcher may reach retirement age long before the bamboo in the lab has reached its moment of flowering. Nor can the seedless clonal rhizomes be used to breed new hybrids.
   To solve the problem, A. F. Mascarenhas and two colleagues at the National Chemical Laboratory in Pune, India, devised a test-tube cocktail that spurs young bamboo plants to flower prematurely. The researchers suspended tiny cuttings of two species of bamboo, Bambusa arundinacea and Dendrocalamus brandisii, in a test tube, and added a culture medium enriched with plant growth hormones, coconut milk and other nutrients. After several weeks and two more applications of the broth, the bamboo slips, measuring only a few inches in length, began sprouting flowers half an inch or so in diameter, the size of adult blossoms.
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