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Comment by blamestross | Hacker News Reader

And still have a problem with having too much bamboo growing outside...

And then you'd still probably die of starvation or some variation of malnutrition, for lack of the physical capacity to consume the 17 lbs of bamboo a day necessary to sustain 2000 kcal intake.

I'm not even entirely sure that the act of consuming it yields more calories from consumption than consumed in exertion for humans.

Most species that subsist on bamboo are sedentary and spend significant fractions of their time and energy simply masticating.

I guess I should have been clearer; I didn't exactly intend eating it alone.

There's more than enough calories to sustain life in a Thai green curry with bamboo in it ;-)

Couldn't you condense the calories somehow, like making a broth and straining?

I imagine it's going to involve a pulverization or grinding step to increase surface area and availability of whatever has caloric value in the plant matter (the equivalent biological processes all seem to), but I'm sure with the appropriate process you could make a soylent bamboo paste or something yeah.

I guess it depends on the specific type. I'd rather have to remove a bamboo clump than a Thai banana clump (I've done both).

Please share this story :-)

It's not much of a story - banana plants are ridiculously resilient; so long as it hasn't flowered yet, you can cut off the entire "trunk" and it will have started shooting the new leaves from the stump within a day.

This resilience applies to the part below ground too, and they're full of water, so it's a bit like trying to dig watermelons out of the ground, but if inevitably split one while digging, and you miss a bit it's just going to grow again, and if you take too long between bouts vs the plant (as with bamboo it's unlikely to be a 1-day affair for a reasonable size clump), some of the bits you cut will have broken down and started to rot, so the ground will be soggy and smell horrible.

Tree of Heaven is worse still. I tried to clear a small property of it for a couple of seasons, and failed, so I unconsciously take note whenever I see it growing: it's seemingly everywhere.

I have a few that are over a year old now that I noticed and plan to take care of soon.

Can you summarize what you've learned?

The most effective method was to hack into the bark to apply an herbicide, and give it a couple of weeks to make its way into the roots. Dig out as much as you can once the leaves all die. Good luck!

Thanks!

Never dealt with those, but the worst for me was Brazilian peppertree. I had just one in my backyard and the best I could do over a decade was managing to keep it from spreading.

It's more accurately called Tree of Hell that Will Not Die. Toxic sap, spreads wildly, re-sprouts from any root fragments more than about 1cm long.

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