JBP from seed - progression

[The Surgeon]

Hi all

I am new to Japanese Black Pines, prior to last winter I did not own a JBP, therefore I decided to buy seeds online. I don't know why, but I ended up buying 150 JBP seeds from The Seed Vine on ebay. The Seed Vine actually ended up sending about 160 seeds.

Late August 2020
I followed the instructions provided, refrigeration; soaking etc. I then placed the seeds in seed trays. 144 seeds in two of these contraptions and the rest in an open seed tray.

seedtray.jpg

The seeds that didn't sink (approx 10), I planted anyway but they did not germinate - as expected.

Of the remaining approx 150seeds about 120 germinated. The seeds in the covered trays sprouted significantly (weeks) prior to the open tray. I then lost all of the seedlings in the open tray to birds. As they sprout the seed husk remains on the foliage and the birds try to eat which ends up having the whole seedling plucked from the tray. (Note to self - keep trays covered)

I expect that I could have been more successful in germination if I didn't plant some seeds so deep?????

Media: I used propagating sand in the seed trays.

11 October 2020
Once the seeds were of sufficient size I moved them to 100mm pots

first pot.jpg

Media: a blend approx 50:50 standard bonsai mix from Damian at Ology and some commercial potting mix I had laying around.

After approx 2 weeks I began fertilising with Osmocote with a NPK of 21.2/1.9/5.7; Seamungus and fortnightly feeds of Powerfeed.

Over these past 6 months I have lost a few. Some decided they didn't want to play anymore; I lost about 4 to birds knocking pots off my benches when I was away during a very warm weekend.

I now have 96 JPB

30 April 2021

Some Examples

JBP1 .jpg

JBP1 top view.jpg

JBP2 .jpg

JBP2 top view.jpg

JBP together.jpg

And this little battler - 45mm

JBP little battler.jpg

Most of the 96 JBPs are now between 160 - 210mm

Movement: I did not wire the seedlings, however once the seedling was tall enough to I leaned the plant to one side and fashioned a wire hook across the trunk fixed to the pot, essentially the seedling is bent to one side. I then faced the top of the seedling south. This encouraged the seedling as it grew, to grow towards the sun. When it have grown sufficiently I repeated the process by bending the trunk, using a hook ,at 90 degrees to the first bend. I kept both hooks in place for a few months and then removed the hooks in late February.

Questions:
As I said at the start, I am new to JBP, so I have some q's:

1. Is 210mm growth usual for first season?
2. I have seen recent posts with people de-candling at this time. Should I de-candle a 6month old tree? (Note some have upto 5 candles forming?)
3. Roots are visible at the bottom of the pots, should I leave it until spring (or just prior to Spring) to repot? Or slip pot to a larger pot now?
4. Most pots still have Osmocote and Seamungus on the surface. Should I remove for winter?

Looking forward to your help.
Jason

[shibui]

Some great trees and some great questions.
1. 210 mm is not particularly unusual for Victorian conditions. I have seen better and much worse.
2. In my view decandling is a technique for refinement to produce short internodes and more ramification. I use different technique on JBP in growth mode. New buds will always appear where there are healthy needles so young JBP can be allowed to grow free for 2 years then pruned hard back to the older needles and still get plenty of new buds and shoots. You can also reduce any tree back to a lower branch to get better taper and lower shoots after the main leader has supplied much needed thickening. I have found that only the lowest section of any seedling is likely to be part of the final bonsai. The upper sections are really just sacrifice branches to thicken the lower trunk. Even with multiple buds just let them all grow for thickening and they will be dealt with when you cut back much later. Focus on lower trunk and lower branches.
3. Roots visible at drain holes has nothing to do with needing repotting. The nature of roots to grow down and longer means the first place they show up is at drain holes.
Slip potting does absolutely nothing for nebari. Badly placed small roots just become larger badly placed roots unless we intervene. Roots circling the pots are still there after slip potting and get thicker. Eventually they just merge with each other and produce a mass of woody roots that can't be dealt with later. In my view early root pruning is essential to producing good bonsai with great nebari. Slip potting is an emergency technique. Use it as infrequently as possible.
Wait and repot in spring when you can do a proper root prune to get best lateral and radial root system. I usually do a first root prune at pricking out to remove the 'tap' root and promote more better lateral roots for future nebari but it is not too late to do that at the first spring repot.
4. A few years ago Grant Bowie asked pine growers all over Aust to try fertilizing some pines through winter while keeping a similar control subject unfertilized as traditional practice. Results showed that pines fertilized through winter in Australia grew far better the following spring. My observations here were so obvious I now fertilize all evergreen trees right through winter with great results. You can remove old fert if you wish but I would urge you to keep up some fert through winter.
You may find some interesting stuff in Grant's fert trial thread - viewtopic.php?f=131&t=17981&hilit=pine

[The Surgeon]

Thanks Shibui for taking the time with such a detailed response - much appreciated.

No doubt I will seek your help again as these guys grow!!

[Ryceman3]

Questions:
As I said at the start, I am new to JBP, so I have some q's:

1. Is 210mm growth usual for first season?
2. I have seen recent posts with people de-candling at this time. Should I de-candle a 6month old tree? (Note some have upto 5 candles forming?)
3. Roots are visible at the bottom of the pots, should I leave it until spring (or just prior to Spring) to repot? Or slip pot to a larger pot now?
4. Most pots still have Osmocote and Seamungus on the surface. Should I remove for winter?

Looking forward to your help.
Jason

Not really much to add from Shibui's post, so I'll be brief ...
1. 210mm is pretty good for year one, you should be satisfied with that.
2. Nobody (in Australia ... but anywhere really?) should be decandling at this time of the year. I think you're getting confused with shoot selection - which is entirely different. Growth is reduced to 2 shoots at any junction to ensure that spot doesn't over-thicken and result in inverse taper. Generally this reduction is at sites that were decandled in December on trees in refinement, but can also be on trees that just have a lot of shoots in one place. I doubt this would be of upmost concern for your trees at this young stage, but you can reduce in the same manner if you have big whorls of shoots emerging from the same spot. Decandling on trees this young would be pointless. By this time I had wired movement into some seedlings, and let others grow. Those I wired are probably looking most promising a few years later - but the others are still good too.
3. Visible roots is normal and no need for slip potting. I did extensive root work on my pines in year one (late winter/early autumn)... if you want a bonsai and not just a pine tree I would recommend this path. I think I did a pretty good job of documenting my process in the "Pine Project" thread if you want further info.
4. I see no reason to remove fert. I don't remove until repotting/root work, which you should be doing.

Hope that helps.

[The Surgeon]

Evening Ryceman
Again, thanks for taking the time to respond
much appreciated

[terryb]

The only thing I'll add to the info provided by Shibui and R3 is if you want some movement down low then get some wire on them soon. As you've noticed, JBP like our long growing season. Some of the advice in books or the internet that originates from the northern hemisphere advocates wiring in the second year. I found that a couple of mine were too thick to get really low hard bends at this age and tI could only get soft bends into the trunk. Check out threads byJonas Dupuich on the Bonsai tonight site and Eric Schrader on phutu.com and now Bonsaify - these helped me get to grips with the concepts. Also, even though he didn't post the links, Shibui has some posts on pruning young pines in development.

[The Surgeon]

Thanks Terry, i also follow Bonsai Tonight.

I have put this afternoon aside for wiring. Thanks for your input - greatly appreciated

[tgooboon]

I planted 25 seeds last winter. Only 8 sprouted. 4 have survived and are very strong.
I just measured, Best is 31cm, worst us 14cm. I live in North Queensland, with a long growing season and very little winter, so should expect more growth here than Vic.

I went through and shoot selected back to 2 recently, probably unnecessary, and probably will slow their growth, but couldn't stop myself when shoot selecting other jbp's.
I need to get wire on these soon.
I'm planning repot with lots of root work in July.

Here is a couple of photos for your comparison.

Sent from my SM-G781B using Tapatalk

[The Surgeon]

Evening,

I have a dumb Q re: repotting JBP seedlings this Spring. Trying to get ahead of the game and purchase some pots for re-potting the (circa 100) JBP seedlings. Currently all seedlings are in a 100x100mm pot.

Any advice on up potting to say:
- 200 x 100mm pot; as opposed to
- 200 x 150mm pot? Or
- other options? or
- reuse the 100x100 pots again for another season? (will reuse sometime in the future elsewhere i'm sure)

FYI - want to repot this spring to:
- concentrate of root work. (Hence the Q re: pot size - does it matter at this stage?)
- Current pots full of root (coming out drainage holes).
- Current soil medium not course. change to open mix to promote oxygen.

many thanks

[shibui]

I potted a range of pines into both 100 and 150 mm pots last spring. Those in the 150 pots have grown much bigger and thicker than those in smaller pots so size does matter.
Healthy trees should be able to cope with the change from 100 to 200 pots.
Pot size should not impact on root work or surface root development but root pruning does affect how the surface roots develop.
The deeper pots will usually give the trees better water and space so should grow somewhat better than the 200x100 pots. Provided you root prune well the extra depth should not cause problems with roots. At some stage I would like to do some side by side comparisons of growth rates and root development in shallow and deeper containers of similar volume to see if there is any significant advantage or otherwise.

200mm pot take up 4 times the space of 100mm pots so your 100 seedlings will suddenly take up much more space and a lot more soil mix.
Fast growing does have some drawbacks as well as the advantage of quicker thickening. As trees grow faster any problems and faults that arise will also become larger. I usually elect to use a range of pot sizes not only to save on space but also for the different results I can get from small and larger pots.

[The Surgeon]

Hia, - Quick Q.

Today i started to repot the seedlings into larger pots, but have noticed the roots are a bit of a tangled mess which will become significantly unsightly in time. I tidied up 5 today however I fear that I may have removed too many roots, so before continuing I thought I'd seek advice. Should I make significant corrections now or gradually over a series of years? Is removing 50% of root too much? (note - no foliage pruning was conducted)

thanks
Jason

[Ryceman3]

On trees this young I would remove at least 50%. Sort the roots early and the rest will follow.
I’m pretty sure there are shots of repotting on trees this vintage on my Pine Project thread… not trying to tell you to follow it but just so you get an idea of the root reduction, all those trees survived (thrived).

[The Surgeon]

Cheers Ryan, I'll go back and review that post!