SERIAN: A total of 27 par­ti­cipants from vari­ous sec­tors have com­pleted a twoday course on bam­boo spe­cies iden­ti­fic­a­tion and propaga­tion tech­niques, equip­ping them with the neces­sary know­ledge to help drive Sarawak’s bam­boo industry.

The ‘Bam­boo Spe­cies Iden­ti­fic­a­tion and Propaga­tion Tech­niques Course Series 1’ from April 28 to 29 was organ­ised col­lab­or­at­ively by the Bam­boo and Car­bon Sec­tion and the Industry Skills Devel­op­ment Sec­tion of the Sarawak Tim­ber Industry Devel­op­ment Cor­por­a­tion (STIDC).

The pro­gramme brought together nine STIDC staff and 18 invited par­ti­cipants com­pris­ing mem­bers of local com­munit­ies, rep­res­ent­at­ives from higher learn­ing insti­tu­tions, and related gov­ern­ment agen­cies.

Accord­ing to STIDC, the ini­ti­at­ive was designed to enhance the par­ti­cipants’ tech­nical skills in identi­fy­ing local bam­boo spe­cies and mas­ter­ing viable propaga­tion meth­ods suit­able for com­mer­cial mar­kets, in line with the state gov­ern­ment’s aspir­a­tion to develop a struc­tured and sus­tain­able bam­boo industry.

The first day of the course, held at Roxy Hotel Serian, focused on the­or­et­ical aspects through three main ses­sions: intro­duc­tion to bam­boo, spe­cies iden­ti­fic­a­tion meth­ods, and propaga­tion tech­niques.

Par­ti­cipants were given inde­pth expos­ure to crit­ical mor­pho­lo­gical char­ac­ter­ist­ics such as stem struc­ture, leaves and shoots, which are key ele­ments in determ­in­ing bam­boo spe­cies iden­tity.

To rein­force their under­stand­ing, the train­ing con­tin­ued on the second day with prac­tical ses­sions at the STIDC Sabal Bam­boo Nurs­ery Site and Sabal Bam­boo Trial Plot.

Dur­ing the field exer­cises, par­ti­cipants had the oppor­tun­ity to prac­tise propaga­tion tech­niques and learn proper nurs­ery man­age­ment to ensure healthy seed­ling growth, before under­go­ing hands-on spe­cies iden­ti­fic­a­tion train­ing in real con­di­tions.

The course was con­duc­ted by experts from the Forest Research Insti­tute Malay­sia, Amir Sar­if­fudin and Norhisyam Ismail, who have dec­ades of exper­i­ence in the forestry field.