Last weekend, the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the American Bamboo Society hosted the 2009 American Bamboo Society Conference at the Murano hotel in Tacoma, WA. If you’ve never attended a conference, here are some pics and notes that will give you an idea of what goes on. You can click on the pics to view a larger image, and click again to close it (sorry, no slide show).
Pre-conference
Activities started on Thursday with garden tours and classes. I attended a class presented by Lynn Clark, Jimmy Triplett, and Amanda Fisher. In the first half of the class, we learned about how bamboos are classified by ancestral relationships, about DNA sequencing and how it is changing what we know about the relationship of bamboo genera. The second half of the day, we learned how to describe various bamboo characters (i.e. branch, leaf, bud, node, sheath) and how to use and create a key for the identification of bamboo.
Conference Speakers
The Friday and Saturday programs were filled with presentations by growers, scientists, researchers, artists and authors. I took in as much as I could, but I couldn’t possibly get pictures of everyone, or everything going on. At the bottom of the page, I have included links where you can find out more about the presenters and their work (if I could find a website associated with a name).
Vendors and Art Displays
Right next door to the presentation room, artists and bamboo-related businesses displayed and sold their items. In the same room, silent auction items and bamboo plants donated for the live auction were available for viewing.
Post-Conference
Sunday was Farm Day at the WSU research groves in Puyallup, WA. Activities included a soils class, demonstrations on grove maintenance and the use of proper tools. This may have been my favorite day of the conference – perfect weather in an outdoor classroom, surrounded by friends old and new to bamboo!
Links
Here are some links to some of the conference participant’s websites. I will add more if I can find them!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Phil, what a great site! Good work.
-Diane
Hey Diane! Glad you like the blog! Craig did an awesome soils class for our bamboo group down at the research station in Puyallup…brings back classroom memories!