Farm yields many uses for 'boo

Walled in by bamboo species from Thailand, the foot-wide track leads from the Tucson desert to the deep green-and-gold glades of Burma, Bali, the Sichuan province in China, temperate Japan, India and South America.

Bamboo grows in the desert? It does, and if Matt Finstrom and the local chapter of the American Bamboo Society have their way, they will be seeing more of this giant, woody grass in back yards, construction sites and refrigerators.

The Finstroms' 1.5-acre spread, Bamboo Ranch, is like a 'boo museum, with more than 100 different species on display.

Matt Finstrom can name them all.

Monastery, Elegant, Arrow, Golden, Mexican Weeping, Black, Guadua, Male, Mei-nung, Robert Young and Weaver's bamboos are all common names, but this former museum herpetologist can spout many more taxonomical names for the 'boo.

Finstrom, who recently began running his bamboo farm as a business, admits that farming the plant uses a lot of water (he had to put in a well). But he and the chapter's members are thinking that the tropical species' seasonal drought resistance will succeed in the desert.

"I've found that tropicals and subtropicals (versus temperate-zone species) do better with our climate because they experience a dry season in the tropics," Finstrom, 50, says while touching the stalk of a Robert Young bamboo plant. "What they don't experience in the tropics is cold.

"Tropicals can handle a prolonged dry period without any problem," Finstrom said. "That's one thing that surprises people: They think that bamboo needs a lot of water, and seasonally, yes, it does.

"But I don't think it uses any more than other (non-native) landscape plants -- palm trees and stuff."

The landscape in Finstrom's back yard is otherworldly when you compare it to the desert -- barely visible through the thick jungle. One grove behind the house is about 17 years old. Its stalks are arm-thick, taller than a two-story building and full of dove, quail and other small animals. "It's an absolute menagerie back here," Finstrom said, strolling in the shady grove. "We have Cooper's hawks hunting."

There are more than 1,200 species of bamboo in the world -- and almost as many uses. Finstrom started growing bamboo to build musical instruments. He has a roomful of home-built instruments, including calungs and other Javanese percussion instruments used in Finstrom's Indonesian music group, Venerable Whispering Grass. Both the ensemble and the instruments are called a gamelan.

Another use -- food -- helps keep these notoriously fast-growing plant from taking over yards.

"Cut 'em off and eat 'em," Finstrom said. "That's the best way to control bamboo." The shoots, prized in many Asian countries, are the young, new canes, generally cut before they are 2 weeks old. Generally, the shoots should be boiled for about 20 minutes.

Bamboo is low in fat and calories: There are around 14 calories and 1/2 gram of fat in each cup.

But it's as a construction material that bamboo really comes into its own: It's almost a perfect rod.

"The epidermis is full of silica," Finstrom said. "It's almost as strong as glass. So, in fact, it's like fiberglass -- it's nature's fiberglass.

"As you get farther inside, you have more lignan -- and that contributes to strength because it makes it flexible as it bends. It compresses in the center, which is sort of what you want with a rod," Finstrom said.

The bamboo equivalent of plywood, plyboo, is twice as strong as plywood.

"You can replace 1/2-inch plywood with 1/4-inch plyboo," Finstrom said, though it's more expensive also. "Once there's enough of it, it'll be cheaper."