It seems the flowering of bamboo (Melocanna bambusoides) in southern Asia is causing havoc with the poor and generating somewhat of a crisis. Rats are eating on the flowers, reproducing at elevated rates and eating all the crops of the local communities. Luckily, it only happens once every 30-35 years when the bamboo flowers. I imagine a way of dealing with this would be to find a use for the flowers, and encourage harvesting. Unfortunaly, it seems there is no recorded use of bamboo flowers out there in cyberspace. Any other solutions to this problem?
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Gets lots of cats to eat the rats???
Seriously, the rats are eating at the flowers because the flowers produce the seed for the next generation of bamboo. I’d love to be able to get my hands on some of the seed, but there are strict importation rules on bamboo and bamboo seed into the US.
Oh well, hope they figure out their rat problem.
I like the idea of the cats - lol ! or even add a few snakes that would sort the rats out. Can the Bamboo be harvested before they flower if so no problem? Rats can get in virtually anywhere so theres no real point in trying to keep them out.