IS BAMBOO RESISTANT TO FUNGI?

摘要

The decomposition by white and brown rot fungi of Malaysian bamboo (Gigantochloa scortechinii) grown in natural stand was investigated. Bamboo culms from three different age classes of 0.5, 3.5 and 6.5 years were exposed to agar media containing 4 % malt extract and 2 % agar technical (No.3) under laboratory condition for 8 weeks. The deterioration was expressed in percentage of weight loss, and the decay resistance classes were measured according to ASTM D 2017-81 (1986). In general, it was found that bamboo was resistant to decay by white and brown rot fungi. The percentage weight loss, however, is greatly reduced with the bamboo maturation age. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation also showed that the fungi hyphae mostly penetrated into the vessel, pit and parenchyma cells.