Chinese thieves put university students’ graduation at risk after stealing bamboo shoots used for research

Chinese university students carrying out research to study the growth of bamboo shoots fear they may not be able to graduate this summer after thieves stole their plants, mainland media reports.

Students at Nanjing Forestry University’s bamboo institute have been struggling to stop the theft of their plants from a field at the campus since March, the Yangtze Evening News reported on Monday.

The experiment, studying the growing pattern of bamboo plants, has been going on for a couple of years.

Some of the students said they feared the thefts would mean they would not be able to complete their research in time to graduate this summer.

Plants started to go missing in March, which led the university to erect signs around the field warning people that the plants were being grown as part of research work.

However, the thieves still ignored the signs and more plants have been taken during the past few days, the report said.