There is a great deal of interest in growing bamboo in North Carolina. We receive calls and emails regularly from farmers interested in establishing a bamboo plantation with plans to sell young bamboo shoots within a year or two and bamboo timber in five years or so. This is a fairly new industry in the Southeast and there is very limited information on how to grow the bamboo, problems that one might encounter while growing it, the economics of production, markets for it, how to manage it so it doesn't grow beyond where you want it to grow, or how to get rid of it if you choose to grow something else there in the future.

The publication below, released in March 2019 from the Southern Regional Extension Forestry Forest Health series, contains answers to many questions you might have about growing bamboo commercially in the Southeast:

Growing Bamboo for Commercial Purposes in the Southeastern U.S.: FAQs authored by David Coyle, Nancy Loewenstein, Deah Lieurance, Ryan Bean, Yanshu Li, Stephen

Considering Bamboo? Know the Risks Before You Plant. Deah Lieurance, UF/IFAS CAIP affiliate faculty member. 2022.

Growing Bamboo in Georgia. Bulletin 1357. Bodie V. Pennisi. 2023

Reviewed and updated by Jeanine Davis on 12/20/2024