Bamboo,
the giant grass, is a vernacular term for members of subfamily Bambusoideae of
family Poaceae. Bamboo is a predominant species of the humid subtropics/
tropics forest ecosystem of the north-east hill region of the Indian
subcontinent In Asia, the history of bamboo is inextricably interwoven with
human history so much that parts of Asia could be described as a “bamboo
civilization.” Bamboo has unique rhizomal growth feature by which culms
(individual bamboo) in the clump (cluster of culms) are interconnected and
reproduce asexually to produce new culms every year. This characteristic
distinguishes bamboo from most other woody plants.

Bamboos
are cultivated and managed in traditional home gardening system (an age old
tropical agroforestry system) to fulfill diverse livelihood requirements and
provide numerous environmental services to rural community. Furthermore, bamboo
plantations protect traditional homesteads from winds, provide construction
materials and fuel wood. Bamboo plays an important role in maintaining and
improving the nutrient status of the soil (Kleinhenz et al. 2001). From a
comparative study, it was reported that the presence of bamboo in the forest
significantly affected the physical and chemical properties of soil (Christanty
and Kimmins, 1996). Nutrient content in soil was positively related to yield
and explained much of variation in yield across bamboo sites and regions in
China (Hong S S, 1994 and Shanmughavel et al. 2001).

Hence,
bamboo growth and biomass are positively related to soil organic matter, which
is the primary source of nutrients in bamboo cultivation sites in Korea (Jim
and Chong, 1982). Bamboo can grow in relatively poor soil and efficiently make
use of the available nutrients and build up relatively fertile soil around the
clumps (Singh and Singh, 1999). While studying the relationship between soil
conditions and fountain bamboo (Sinarundinaria fangiana), it was observed that
bamboo grew well on acid soil with low base saturation, deep, and low gravel
content of soils but died in the alkaline, shallow, calcareous soil with high gravel
content (Zhang, 1996). A canonical correlation analysis for bamboo growth
showed that surface soil depth, total nitrogen (N), and soil organic matter
content had high positive correlation, and clay content and cation exchange
capacity were negatively correlated with the bamboo growth (Chung and Ramma,
1990). Studies related to soil and bamboo revealed emphasis has been given to
forest bamboos, whereas bamboo plantations remain unexplored although it forms
an important component of the agroforestry systems of south Asia, especially in
India and Bangladesh.

In
traditional agro-forestry systems, bamboos are grown on soils of poor quality
or degraded site of the holdings. Therefore, bamboo has been traditionally used
to reclaim degraded lands. Despite the significant impact of bamboos to the
livelihood and wellbeing of farmers, there exists the need of scientific
understandings of the role of pure plantations of bamboo management on
sustaining soil nutrient status.