SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Giant Panda Bamboo Diet Gets Lift

Indian scientists have made a breakthrough that could eventually help save China’s giant panda, endangered by dwindling supplies of arrow bamboo, its staple diet, a leading British botanist has reported.

The three Indians have induced bamboo to flower early, David Hanke, a Cambridge University botanist, wrote in the journal Nature.

He said the discovery by scientists R. S. Nadgauda, V. A. Parasharami and A. F. Mascarenhas at India’s National Chemical Laboratory at Pune should lead to an improvement in bamboo stock and development of new hybrids.

Bamboo--biggest of the grass species--normally flowers only once in its lifetime, then fruits and dies. The process can take from 12 to 120 years. The three scientists developed two species of bamboo from tissue culture, using coconut milk as a growth regulator. The bamboo flowered after three subcultures.

“The new discovery should make possible an explosion of new types,” said Hanke.