Evaluation of Bamboo species in India: Results from a multi-location trial

Despite the fact India is the world's second largest resources of bamboo, one of the major constraints inhibiting the development of value added enterprise in the bamboo sector is the availability and accessibility of suitable bamboo species for a specific region and adequate raw material at reasonable price and of the required quality, which is widely suitable for managed cultivation regime. To make available quality plant material as well as standardized package of practices for farmer/entrepreneur level plantation, National Mission on Bamboo Applications assigned Agroforestry Research Centre (AFRC), G. B. Pant University, Pantnagar forframing and coordinating the bamboo research in the different agro-ecological zones across the country. Seven centresof different agro-ecological regions across the country were selected as part of the coordinated programme. A common framework for multi-locational trial was followed at all the locations with two local and six common species viz., Bambusa bambos, B. balcooa, B. nutans, B. tulda, Dendrocalamus asper and D. hamiltonii. Among these different species evaluated, B. balcooa, B. nutans and B. vulgaris performed better in terms of survival and growth in most of the centers. The paper highlights the salient results obtained during the study.