A discussion on propagating Japanese Black Pines from candles

[Promethius]

I recently mentioned in another thread that I’ve had success this year in propagating Japanese Black Pine seedlings from candles. At least, after a few months they still seem to be alive, and I'm positive about their future. I understand that this success may be unusual, so this thread is to share my experience and to allow others to share theirs. It's important to note that I'm in suburban Melbourne, and that this has been a La Niña year, with cooler average temperatures and higher humidity than most summers.

I acquired my first two JBPs this year. One is estimated at around 3-5 years old, the other is more established and is probably 10-15 years old. Neither was ready for decandling this year, but both had some branches that I intend to remove this autumn. I decandled the branches planned for removal and tried to propagate the candles. I hadn't expected success, so whatever records I have and all photos are very much post hoc.

Tree age: the candles from the younger tree had a higher survival rate (4/5) compared to the older tree (1/3). However, the smaller tree had longer candles, a significant confounder.
* Terryb has previously documented success in propagating candles from a 1.5-year-old tree

Fertilising before decandling: more is probably better
I don’t believe that either pine had been fertilised much this season before I got them. The larger one was from a private collection whose owner lacked the time. I started heavy fertilisation for the smaller pine from early December (about 5 weeks before candle harvest), but the larger tree only had 1-2 weeks of fertiliser.

Timing of candle removal: First week of January.

Candle size:
- All candles were cut proximally – i.e. only a short stub of residual tissue was left (2-4mm).
- The length of candles varied. The ones that were about 2-3 cm long survived; shorter ones (<1.5cm) did not. I think this related to rot when needle sheaths were below the soil surface.

Needles: Proximal needles were removed, leaving about 10-12 distal sheaths and their respective needles.

Hormone: I used purple (3g/L) Clonex gel - each candle was dipped for about 30 seconds.

Soil mix: 1 part coir peat, 1 part perlite.

Water: heaps
- All candles were kept in a water tray for a solid month, until the hot weather started to recede.
- Some were left for longer - several of these developed rotten-looking needles and died. These were also the shorter ones.

Sunlight: Candles got about 5 hours of sun each day for their first month, from 1000-1500hrs (the sunniest spot available to me).


Some of the above differs from my original post, and is based on going back carefully through pictures, as well as autopsying failed candles and unearthing a few successful ones to check candle length and root development.


Photos:

Image.jpeg

single.jpeg

- A successful candle at 6 weeks (very tiny roots, unfortunately out of focus)

pair.jpeg

- Two successful candles. All successful candles were placed at about this depth, with needles just above the soil line but not touching it.

deep.jpg

- All in this pot failed; all were planted with at least a few needles emerging below the soil line. The one alive in this photo (taken at about 6 weeks post-decandling) went rotten and died shortly after, and on autopsy was only about 1cm long.


I’d be keen to hear others’ tales! What has worked for you? What hasn’t?

[shibui]

I thought you had been successful. That implies roots and plants growing.
Unfortunately many conifers stay green for ages without any roots. I've had pine cuttings still look Ok for nearly 2 years before finally dying without any roots.

This year, for the first time ever, I have managed to get some candles to root.
It finally occurred to me that if shoots cannot grow where there are no needles then maybe roots cannot grow either so this time I cut the candles above the bare neck then stripped the needles, dipped in clonex red and placed them under mist as usual.
These cuttings are from JRP candles removed at decandling in mid December.
Results are 4 rooted from 14 cuttings. A couple are definitely dead but still 9 green so there's still a chance of a couple more.

CH020001.JPG

CH020002.JPG

[squizzy]

I thought you had been successful. That implies roots and plants growing.
Unfortunately many conifers stay green for ages without any roots. I've had pine cuttings still look Ok for nearly 2 years before finally dying without any roots.

This year, for the first time ever, I have managed to get some candles to root.
It finally occurred to me that if shoots cannot grow where there are no needles then maybe roots cannot grow either so this time I cut the candles above the bare neck then stripped the needles, dipped in clonex red and placed them under mist as usual.
These cuttings are from JRP candles removed at decandling in mid December.

Results are 4 rooted from 14 cuttings. A couple are definitely dead but still 9 green so there's still a chance of a couple more.
CH020001.JPG
CH020002.JPG

Neil are you also placing on heat? I have had great success with only first flush candles from seedlings with very little effort .
I follow a guy from America on Facebook. I think his name is mark comstock??? He strikes pine cuttings with amazing nebari but he emphasises heat is crucial. I also think he pulls the cutting out struck, cuts the roots back, re applies hormone and strikes them again? He may do this process several times but it produces some truely unbelievable material.
Squizzy

[Matt S]

This is a great thread - thanks Promethius and Neil, and what Neil says about rooting from needle sites makes sense. Next summer I won't be throwing away all those candles!

Matt.

[Promethius]

Thanks for pointing that out, Neil. Apologies.
Unfortunately I'm not able to edit my post to remove the (probably misleading) content. If an admin would be so kind, that would be appreciated.
I'll provide an update if these do happen to survive after all.

[shibui]

There's no problem with the post or the material contained in. Thanks indeed for starting a single thread to show different trials and results. Let's just keep updating as things happen and hope that others join in.

I have a bunch of juvenile JBP cuttings showing roots now so I'll take photos when I pot those up and post here to show the differences with juvenile cuttings from seedlings.
I also noticed a single root showing on a pot of more mature mugho cuttings today.

[Ryceman3]

I thought you had been successful. That implies roots and plants growing.
Unfortunately many conifers stay green for ages without any roots. I've had pine cuttings still look Ok for nearly 2 years before finally dying without any roots.

This year, for the first time ever, I have managed to get some candles to root.
It finally occurred to me that if shoots cannot grow where there are no needles then maybe roots cannot grow either so this time I cut the candles above the bare neck then stripped the needles, dipped in clonex red and placed them under mist as usual.
These cuttings are from JRP candles removed at decandling in mid December.
Results are 4 rooted from 14 cuttings. A couple are definitely dead but still 9 green so there's still a chance of a couple more.
CH020001.JPG
CH020002.JPG

Sounds a lot like what @terryb had success with a couple of years ago and posted in the original thread. Plenty of roots etc shown as successful attempts there.
viewtopic.php?p=293005#p293005

I don’t think you can discount what @Promethius put forward yet either. Not definitive to be sure but on the right track and a great description of what was done to get to that point. I think it’s a great intro to start the discussion. Clearly he did a bit of research and applied what he found. Props for that.

[Ryceman3]

Neil are you also placing on heat? I have had great success with only first flush candles from seedlings with very little effort .
I follow a guy from America on Facebook. I think his name is mark comstock??? He strikes pine cuttings with amazing nebari but he emphasises heat is crucial. I also think he pulls the cutting out struck, cuts the roots back, re applies hormone and strikes them again? He may do this process several times but it produces some truely unbelievable material.
Squizzy

I’m not all over everything Mark posts but I do know a lot of his work relates back to stem cutting on seedlings (as opposed to traditional cuttings)… don’t know if this is the process you refer to or if he also does it with candle cuttings. Either way, applying this to a candle cutting is an interesting strategy.
You are 100% right though, he produces some lovely looking stuff.

[squizzy]

Neil are you also placing on heat? I have had great success with only first flush candles from seedlings with very little effort .
I follow a guy from America on Facebook. I think his name is mark comstock??? He strikes pine cuttings with amazing nebari but he emphasises heat is crucial. I also think he pulls the cutting out struck, cuts the roots back, re applies hormone and strikes them again? He may do this process several times but it produces some truely unbelievable material.
Squizzy

I’m not all over everything Mark posts but I do know a lot of his work relates back to stem cutting on seedlings (as opposed to traditional cuttings)… don’t know if this is the process you refer to or if he also does it with candle cuttings. Either way, applying this to a candle cutting is an interesting strategy.
You are 100% right though, he produces some lovely looking stuff.

It could be simply stem cuttings but his cuttings seem to produce a lot of buds very low as if he skips that first 20mm between the roots and the first whirl of needles. I assumed he is cutting above this point. To note I think he uses a razor blade to cut and he ads UV light under plastic to promote additional buds down low. The prolific roots I can’t work out other than assuming he simply re cuts several times at an early stage. My cuttings only ever produce 2-3 roots. He looks like he gets 20-30.

[tgooboon]

Here is a video of some cuttings being dug up. About 30% success. Not in English, but has subtitles https://youtu.be/fA92N4oq_Rc

Sent from my SM-G781B using Tapatalk

[shibui]

I’m not all over everything Mark posts but I do know a lot of his work relates back to stem cutting on seedlings (as opposed to traditional cuttings)… don’t know if this is the process you refer to or if he also does it with candle cuttings. Either way, applying this to a candle cutting is an interesting strategy.
You are 100% right though, he produces some lovely looking stuff.

Don't just make guesses. Check the original source for accurate info.
These are definitely seedling cuttings.
That is taking a perfectly good JBP seedling and chopping through the stem and throwing away all the roots. Then treat the upper stem as a cutting, get it to root and go from there.
That explains the good success rate (juvenile growth) and the low shoots (reduce stem length to needles and growing points)

For those of us that have limited access to seed I'd refer you to some of Shibui Bonsai posts. I've found that I can make seedling cuttings with good success and low shoots but also grow a good tree from the root section as well - 2 pines (and occasionally more) from every seed.

[Ryceman3]

I’m not all over everything Mark posts but I do know a lot of his work relates back to stem cutting on seedlings (as opposed to traditional cuttings)… don’t know if this is the process you refer to or if he also does it with candle cuttings. Either way, applying this to a candle cutting is an interesting strategy.
You are 100% right though, he produces some lovely looking stuff.

Don't just make guesses. Check the original source for accurate info.
These are definitely seedling cuttings.
That is taking a perfectly good JBP seedling and chopping through the stem and throwing away all the roots. Then treat the upper stem as a cutting, get it to root and go from there.
That explains the good success rate (juvenile growth) and the low shoots (reduce stem length to needles and growing points)

For those of us that have limited access to seed I'd refer you to some of Shibui Bonsai posts. I've found that I can make seedling cuttings with good success and low shoots but also grow a good tree from the root section as well - 2 pines (and occasionally more) from every seed.

I don’t use Facebook so any original source that Squizzy was referring to is out of my scope to check accuracy. Squizzy doesn’t mention a particular source so it’s hard to know exactly what post (posts) of Mark’s he is referring to. The rest is pretty much what I said… Mark’s process (as far as I know) is based on stem cutting, as I stated in the post you quoted above… unless of course he has mentioned otherwise on Facebook … I guess!
It’s possible.
In relation to those of us with limited access to seed, I think you can safely include 90%+ people in Australia who would be interested in getting some. (also only a guess though!)

[squizzy]

I’m not all over everything Mark posts but I do know a lot of his work relates back to stem cutting on seedlings (as opposed to traditional cuttings)… don’t know if this is the process you refer to or if he also does it with candle cuttings. Either way, applying this to a candle cutting is an interesting strategy.
You are 100% right though, he produces some lovely looking stuff.

Don't just make guesses. Check the original source for accurate info.
These are definitely seedling cuttings.
That is taking a perfectly good JBP seedling and chopping through the stem and throwing away all the roots. Then treat the upper stem as a cutting, get it to root and go from there.
That explains the good success rate (juvenile growth) and the low shoots (reduce stem length to needles and growing points)

For those of us that have limited access to seed I'd refer you to some of Shibui Bonsai posts. I've found that I can make seedling cuttings with good success and low shoots but also grow a good tree from the root section as well - 2 pines (and occasionally more) from every seed.

I don’t use Facebook so any original source that Squizzy was referring to is out of my scope to check accuracy. Squizzy doesn’t mention a particular source so it’s hard to know exactly what post (posts) of Mark’s he is referring to. The rest is pretty much what I said… Mark’s process (as far as I know) is based on stem cutting, as I stated in the post you quoted above… unless of course he has mentioned otherwise on Facebook … I guess!
It’s possible.
In relation to those of us with limited access to seed, I think you can safely include 90%+ people in Australia who would be interested in getting some. (also only a guess though!)

Sorry for the confusion guys. I will do my best to take some screen shots of his cuttings to show what I mean.
Neils cuttings he showed on ausbonsai years back inspired me to do some of my own. What I realised you can do is cut high enough on a jbp seedling to be able to retain the rooted seedlings as well as take a cutting fro
That first blueish growth that a seedling puts out. That way you get 2 trees from one seedling.
Cheers.
Squizzy

[squizzy]

Here are 3 photos from Mark Comstocks bonsai page. As you can see it’s ridiculous. He also mentions cut twice in his JRP cuttings. I assume that’s how he gets the amount of roots he does.

E7F07457-E90B-482C-AF5B-D5FAA2612497.jpeg

62501DAB-44D3-4554-9DB7-FDC7E25DCA09.jpeg

877928CF-7C78-48B7-9E7E-9B8245FFE793.jpeg

[Ryceman3]

Thanks for the clarification Squizzy (and the pics).
I have seen similar stuff from him in other forums/places on the net. These are all definitely his stem cut seedling techniques.
He has a very elaborate set up and really is passionate about getting the best bases on his young stock, most (possibly all?) he starts by seed. There are only a couple of people I know getting the same results as him consistently ... another guy in America does a lot of his propagation under lights and using a whole heap of different controlled environments, fertiliser regimes and lighting set ups etc that produce a similar product. It's next level. I haven't seen anything like this kind of development in Australia, it might be around ... not sure. In any event, it's a little off-topic for this particular thread but his work is interesting nonetheless.