A Glimpse on 65 Years of Passion-driven Work for Bamboo

A Glimpse on 65 Years of Passion-driven Work for Bamboo

Walter Liese

Abstract. My first contact with bamboo took place in 1951, when shortage of timber for the coal mining industry in West Germany led to the idea to use bamboo as pit props. However, they failed under axial load. In 1952, pioneering the use of the electron-microscope for cell wall structures, bamboo was also tested. These photos excited a visiting Indian wood preservation expert, since structural knowledge might improve the preservative treatment of bamboo culms. So, in 1957, I went to India for 4.5 months as an FAO expert to improve methods for bamboo preservation. This mission was followed by consultancies in about 25 countries, strongly supported by laboratory research. Results were published in about 110 bamboo-related papers and 6 books as author or co-author. The latest publication from 2016 contains chapters on structures, properties and uses of bamboo. At the age of 93 I am still enjoying the discussions with bamboo colleagues worldwide.

Keywords
bamboo, structures, protection, utilization, international projects

Published online 4/20/2019, 7 pages
Copyright © 2019 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Walter Liese, A Glimpse on 65 Years of Passion-driven Work for Bamboo, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 11, pp 62-68, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644900178-2

The article was published as article 2 of the book By-Products of Palm Trees and Their Applications

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

References
[1] Liese W., Bamboos-Biology, silvics, properties, utilization, GTZ Schriftenreihe, Eschborn, 180 (1985).
[2] Liese W., The anatomy of BAMBOO CULMS, Technical report 18, INBAR, Beijing, 1998.
[3] Willeitner H., Liese W., Wood Protection in Tropical Countries, GTZ Schriftenreihe Eschborn, 227 (1992).
[4] Liese W. and Satish Kumar, Bamboo Preservation Compendium, New Delhi, 2003.
[5] Liese W., Köhl M. (eds), Bamboo – The Plant and its Uses, Springer, Heidelberg, 2015, Chapters 8,9,10: pp. 227-364