Sounds overwatered which damages the roots

Hi bambooo,

It seems like I have to strike a balance between over and underwatering. In this instance I can say that they were not overwatered as the potting compost is free draining and moisture level was checked regularly with a meter. Neither did the plant have the chance to dry out , soil & rootball were never anything other than moist when checked.
Maybe I need to look elsewhere for the cause. I did however feed this plant with a soluble 0-10-10 fertilizer in recent weeks , could this be a cause ?

I am a very recent convert to bamboo but can say that from my few months experience that anything I have put in the ground has prospered and is without problems. Conversely anything I have in pots has shown varying degrees of unhappiness . I guess I just do not yet have the hang of keeping containerized boos yet.

There is no change in the condition of this Bissetti , leaves still brown at tips and large proportion curled.

I will just have to wait and see.

acercon3-
The fertilizer may have had an effect if there was too much of it. If I give newly potted bamboo anything, it's a controlled release fertilizer in pellet form. On the other hand, it could just be something else. Is it possible it's getting rootbound and it should have gone in a larger pot? My own experience with bamboo is that they can take a lot of rough handling, so I'm not sure removing it from the pot hurt it, unless you really tried to pry apart the individual rhizomes, or you damaged the culm-rhizome junction of a juvenile plant when you were getting it out. I'm not particularly gentle with mine: when I have a bamboo that's getting a little overgrown, I'll knock the pot off, and use a root saw to cut the rootball in half, or even into 3 or 4 pie-wedges and then repot them. I've yet to lose any, and I don't pamper them afterwards. Just keep it decently watered and give it some time. Unless the culms start dying, it will recover when it settles down.

kudzu9,

Thanks for the info.

I have been gentle with all my containerized boos so do not think problem is down to root/rhizome damage.
I recently repotted all other boos and none have shown any reaction. In light of the fact that this boo looked to be poorly I did not repot but now think that popping it into something larger may be best.
On a slightly different tack how would these repotted boos react if I kept them in my garage under fluorescent lighting ( lights out at night)? Garage is only slightly heated and temp never drops below freezing. The reasoning behind my question is to find out how prolonged the rhizome development maybe if these plants were not subjected to lower temps encountered outdoors.

I know that this might sound strange, perhaps bamboo likes some period of time where it is overwatered and some where it is over watered. It may explain why underwatering after overwatering helps the plant so much. Watering the same amount may perhaps just stall it somehow.

And yes it does sound like a strange (or stupid)idea to me too. But it does seem like a simple solution.