Andy Royer (left in the picture above with Rolf Baginski in the middle) is a bamboo broker (here is website) from Seattle, USA.

The best quality of bamboo for rod building is of the species "Arundinaria Amabilis" - this is the old scientific name, in reality the correct new scientific name is "Pseudosasa Amabilis" I use the old word because its widespread use in the community of bamboo rodmakers, (the same bamboo is also called "Tonkin") and the best and larger plantations are in a relatively small area in Southern China (along the Sui River, Guangning Province) where the bamboo business creates large and green forests.

Andy has been in the bamboo business for over 20 years and personally learned how to select the best bamboo culms expressly for us rodbuilders. If you want to see him in action and deepen your knowledge in bamboo rodmaking you can have a look at his excellent documentary Green Trout, so named because bamboo is a grass and not a plant. The documentary covers bamboo rod making from the selection of bamboo culms, to the elaborate making of a rod to the final casting in a river. Superb photography and excellent storyboard. A five star rating DVD.

Anyhow, back to us. Andy told us that the agricultural bamboo business in the US is much bigger and Andy is dealing with that, too, to make a living.

He, told us how difficult it was in the beginning to found suitable bamboo culms of good quality for our purpose.

Nature being as it is, the "perfect" culm does not exist, each bamboo plant has imperfections - actually, bamboo is a grass which for this species grows up to 10-12m in just 3 months and then is harvested 3-4 years later. Besides, there is not even unity of what rodbuilders think is a good quality culm: some want yellow culms, some others pay more attention to the distance from the nodes, some others want the best looking, "clean" bamboo, others prefer heavy culms, while others again wish a mixture of all above.

Andy Royer also reminded us the historical background of the '50s, the Maoist revolution, the following US trade embargo (1950 - 1971), the Chinese new subdivision of the land to the people which made so that each villager of the area where he works got about 5 acres of bamboo plantation.

I think it is noteworthy to mention that locally the Chinese villagers consider the quality of bamboo rather differently: for them the "good" bamboo is young, "green" bamboo, suitable for many construction purposes, while "our" selected bamboo culms are of "low quality" because "old".Is there any competition from Chinese bamboo rodbuilders, then, as a person from the audience asked? No, there is no culture for fly fishing in China neither! Andy told me that the local peasants do not understand what we are doing! A typical cultural gap.

from Andy Royer's presentation to the Sansepolcro Gathering main page