Japanese Red Pine Advanced Techniques

[NBPCA]

Grant,

I am very interested in exploring the spring decandling technique further...

Is it much different to what Joe has written above?

Do you decandle more than once a year, Spring then Autumn?

Is there much growth from the buds prior to decandling?

I assume the 10%-20% not removed are weak buds?

Are they still cut off straight across the candle? Is any stub left?

Weakest to strongest over the 4 weeks?

How do you stop the new growth/candles getting too large?

Thanks,
Scott.

Hi Scott,

When in Sydney I was able to decandle and also cut back growth in Autumn.

I have not been able to do that yet in Canberra due to the shortness of season.

I am upping fertilizer rates to see if I can get around the shortness of season here.

Buds are elongating now and I am removing those over 25mm and some under 25mm on the lower portions. In 4 weeks time or so I will be more aggressive at the top of the plant to allow the new buds forming down lower to catch up.

Cutting straight accross and leaving a small stub.(Both Black and Red as per Jow)

I may end up decandling up to 95%; I will see how it goes. All the trees are in good health.

I am leaving one Red pine to do the Boon method but that tree could not be displayed as it would look too messy.

I will post results as it goes,

Grant

[Jow]

Hi Grant,

Your description of the technique you are using sounds very similar to those that people use in warmer climates such as hawaii. I seem to remember an article in Bonsai Today that outlined de-candling several times per year that came out of hawaii.

I am guessing that Canberra's climate will not allow for multiple growth spurts beyond 2 per year unlike what it sounds Sydneys warmer climate might.

It will be interesting to see how the trees progress side by side now you have a test pine that is using the japanese candle pruning model.

Look forward to your results.

Joe

[NBPCA]

Hi Grant,

Your description of the technique you are using sounds very similar to those that people use in warmer climates such as hawaii. I seem to remember an article in Bonsai Today that outlined de-candling several times per year that came out of hawaii.

I am guessing that Canberra's climate will not allow for multiple growth spurts beyond 2 per year unlike what it sounds Sydneys warmer climate might.

It will be interesting to see how the trees progress side by side now you have a test pine that is using the japanese candle pruning model.

Look forward to your results.

Joe

Hi Joe,

Yes I haven't been able to do multiple decandles/pruning in a year yet. I can cut back this seasons growth in January for instance(a so called autumn prune) but would get no budding at all till the following spring

I was alerted early on by some experiences in Tasmania. They had been told to do the full decandling in December and were getting no elongating growth at all in that season. The buds formed but did not elongate till the following spring.

I told them to up their fertilising(which was very light on) and to cut earlier and see what happens.

Different climates produce vastly different results.

I am very familiar with Black pine but have not had as much experience with Red pine but I now have 3 x 40 year old reds to look after in varying states of health, vigour, repot etc.


Grant

[Jow]

Hi Joe,

Yes I haven't been able to do multiple decandles/pruning in a year yet. I can cut back this seasons growth in January for instance(a so called autumn prune) but would get no budding at all till the following spring

I was alerted early on by some experiences in Tasmania. They had been told to do the full decandling in December and were getting no elongating growth at all in that season. The buds formed but did not elongate till the following spring.

I told them to up their fertilising(which was very light on) and to cut earlier and see what happens.

Different climates produce vastly different results.

I am very familiar with Black pine but have not had as much experience with Red pine but I now have 3 x 40 year old reds to look after in varying states of health, vigour, repot etc.


Grant

Hi Grant,

If you are only able to decandle once per year in Canberra, then i would aim for a december decandling for the reasons outlined in my earlier posts (shorter necks, shorter needles). This applies for reds and blacks as they should be treated the same.

If you do not get a seccond flush of growth this means you have pruned too late and i would adjust by doing the following year two weeks earlier and see what that does.

I think your advice for the Tasmanians is sound. Feeding is definately a big player but cutting a couple of weeks earlier too would have helped. Over all health is another factor that might have played a part as pines should be jumping out of their skins with energy for this technique to work well.

It will be interesting to see how you fine tune the techniques to your new climate.

Joe.

[NBPCA]

Hi all,

The experiment/observation began one month ago.

I am looking after 3 red pine ; all in different stages and degrees of health; 3 different potting mixes etc but here goes.

Red pine no 1. A tree that was donated to the collection last year and was accepted for its tremendous potential. It was however in dreadful condition health wise and so we spent our energies on this tree rebuilding its health and did an emergency repot in autumn. The tree is now doing very well and we are letting it grow relatively freely to reinforce its vigour and have done some removal of the largest candles in the strongests spots and some minor candle snapping elsewhere. The lowest branch has been largely left alone to gain vigour. If it continues to thrive we will probably do a candle removal on the strongest and medium areas in say early December but hardly touch the weak areas. That way next year we can start its retraining and the tree will be in good health with some compactness in the strong and medium areas.

Red pine no 2. This tree is now in very good health; if somewhat a little shaggy, after having spent the last year building up its vigour. On September 20th I observed the tree closely. About 60% of the buds/candles on the tree were singles, about 30% were doubles and about 10% were triple candles. There was nowhere with 4 buds/candles at the one point. On that day I removed more than 50 candles and then over the next month every 6 to 10 days did much the same.

Japanese Red Pine 008.JPG

Japanese Red Pine 005.JPG

Japanese Red Pine 011.JPG

[Jow]

Hi all,

The experiment/observation began one month ago.

I am looking after 3 red pine ; all in different stages and degrees of health; 3 different potting mixes etc but here goes.

Red pine no 1. A tree that was donated to the collection last year and was accepted for its tremendous potential. It was however in dreadful condition health wise and so we spent our energies on this tree rebuilding its health and did an emergency repot in autumn. The tree is now doing very well and we are letting it grow relatively freely to reinforce its vigour and have done some removal of the largest candles in the strongests spots and some minor candle snapping elsewhere. The lowest branch has been largely left alone to gain vigour. If it continues to thrive we will probably do a candle removal on the strongest and medium areas in say early December but hardly touch the weak areas. That way next year we can start its retraining and the tree will be in good health with some compactness in the strong and medium areas.

The only thing i would add in regards to this is about the candle removal in strong areas. What i have found is that if you remove a candle fully it will begin to set new buds. The problem with removing strong candles and not others on the tree means that you give the strong areas a big head start on any candles you will subsequently prune. This will basically mean that if you do prune the medium growth later in the season the strong growth will have already set new buds and will remain stronger.

I have found that if you are getting really unballanced strong growth in any one area it is much better to snap the candles as this does not encourage back budding as much. Then you would do candle pruning in December starting with medium growth and then the strong candles that were only snapped. This way the medium growth gets the head start setting buds and the strong growth is held back hopefully resulting in more ballanced growth.

Hope that is helpful.

Joe

[NBPCA]

Red pine 2 buds where 1 candle removed on 26th September 2011.JPG

Bud emerging and candle elongating behind to be removed.JPG

Up till now I have been concentrating in the weaker to medium areas and have left the stronger areas for later to reinforce the weaker and slow down the stronger.

Today I have eliminated most of the candles that were missed and those at the top. The tree is budding back nicely and it will be interesting to see how it does this season.

Grant

[NBPCA]

Hi all,

The experiment/observation began one month ago.

I am looking after 3 red pine ; all in different stages and degrees of health; 3 different potting mixes etc but here goes.

Red pine no 1. A tree that was donated to the collection last year and was accepted for its tremendous potential. It was however in dreadful condition health wise and so we spent our energies on this tree rebuilding its health and did an emergency repot in autumn. The tree is now doing very well and we are letting it grow relatively freely to reinforce its vigour and have done some removal of the largest candles in the strongests spots and some minor candle snapping elsewhere. The lowest branch has been largely left alone to gain vigour. If it continues to thrive we will probably do a candle removal on the strongest and medium areas in say early December but hardly touch the weak areas. That way next year we can start its retraining and the tree will be in good health with some compactness in the strong and medium areas.

The only thing i would add in regards to this is about the candle removal in strong areas. What i have found is that if you remove a candle fully it will begin to set new buds. The problem with removing strong candles and not others on the tree means that you give the strong areas a big head start on any candles you will subsequently prune. This will basically mean that if you do prune the medium growth later in the season the strong growth will have already set new buds and will remain stronger.

I have found that if you are getting really unballanced strong growth in any one area it is much better to snap the candles as this does not encourage back budding as much. Then you would do candle pruning in December starting with medium growth and then the strong candles that were only snapped. This way the medium growth gets the head start setting buds and the strong growth is held back hopefully resulting in more ballanced growth.

Hope that is helpful.

Joe

Hi Joe,

On pine no 1 only the strongest buds amongst groups of 3 or 4 were removed. As you say if I had removed all the strong buds they would have had too much of a head start over the others.

Thanks for your input.

Grant

[Jow]

Ah ok, that makes sense.

It will be interesting to see how these two techniques go in another 6 months in your climate. I will keep an eye on this thread.

[NBPCA]

Hi Joe,

The two trees were in quite different states, necessitating the different approaches.

No 1 which had been sick, recovered and repotted (Diatomite, Gravel/Zeolite, Pine bark nuggets and Coco fibre)was in explosive good health and at the top of the tree it was putting out serious candle growth and a very high percentage had 3 or 4 candles per cluster. I figured I had to do something but not remove all the strong canldes as the resultant buds would have got a head start on the weaker areas. So instead, where there were 3, 4 or more buds/candles elongating; I removed the strongest candles but left two buds/candles to elongate at the top. About 2 to 3 weeks later I lightly snapped most of those I had left untouched. So far so good.

No 2 pine was still in its original mix but had been fed regularly had just 10% of clusters of 3 buds/candles.

An interesting and complex set of trees.

Grant

[NBPCA]

Hi Joe,

A quick update on the Red pines.

Pine no 1 has completely recovered its health and will be a perfect future specimen for a restyle. As it has been in the recovery and get healthy stage I have not been to aggressive with it re needle size or length of candle.

Pine no 2 has produced abundant new growth this season after decandling that is dense, compact and short. A perfect result. Just waiting for the new growth to completely harden off then will remove the few long shaggy needles left over from last year(I know its early but this is mostly for appearance sake as the tree is on display all the time and it is in great health).

I will take some photos next week now that the NBPCA is opening and things are getting back to normal.

Grant

[Jow]

Sounds like you are getting some good results Grant. I look forward to seeing the trees next time I make it up to the collection.

Joe.