Help with Black Pine development needed

[Raging Bull]

I have a black pine which was bought about 3 months ago. I saw potential for a twin trunk tree and want to develop it as such. It had two very long and vigorous shoots which I immediately pruned, along with a general clean-up and reduction of shoots where there were multiple shoots coming from one whorl.

2020.02.29 01e.JPG

2020.02.29 02e.JPG

It has remained healthy and I'm pleased with it so far. I would like to keep it at about the size it is now which is 50 cm tall. I just need it to ramify and develop now.

2020.05.18 03e.JPG

My question is, do I remove the candles at this time or just cut them smaller, or should I cut the branches back further to encourage ramification further down the branches?

2020.05.18 01e.JPG

2020.05.18 02e.JPG

So far I've wired a couple smaller branches, but I'm not adverse to wiring our using a jack to bend the thicker branches.
Any suggestions or helpful hints would be appreciated.

[shibui]

Cutting candles at this time of year will just produce large replacement candles in spring. That's not what you want.
Candles are cut some time in early- mid summer so that the replacement shoots don't have time to grow too big over the remainder of summer.

Cutting branches back behind the new candles will force the tree to bud from nearby healthy needles so if you think you do need some more branching that would be appropriate. If there's already enough branches then don't bother. Current branches look reasonably spaced so maybe not needed?
I can see a couple of long, unbranched branches (is that a thing ) Those are the ones that will benefit from cutting back. You must get some ramification on branches at this stage. When the needles have aged and fallen off that chance is gone.

I must make comment that I do not particularly like the high twin fork and the 2 trunks do not seem to harmonise well. Neither one seems dominant in either size, thickness or direction.

[Raging Bull]

Thank you for you comments Neil, all taken on board. Your last comment regarding the branching has bothered me a little too, but I couldn't put a finger on the reason why it bothered me. You've now clarified it for me. I have a couple of options to deal with it now. One of them is to make most of that branch on the left, which is the slightly smaller one, into a jin. The other option is to cut the left branch back, as indicated by the red line in the pic below. There are three secondary branches coming off that branch below the proposed cut, two are visible in the pic, circled in yellow. These can then be used to develop the shortened branch. I will ponder the problem a little longer before acting on it and try to retain the option of making it into a twin trunk that has the two trunks more in harmony.
Cheers, Frank

2020.05.18 03e sm.png

[shibui]

I agree that either of those smaller branches will probably harmonize better with the other trunk and will certainly reduce that side too a subordinate role.
It still won't address the slingshot fork with the high initial division.

As you say - not decisions to make in haste. There's several years of development before you'll really need to make those hard decisions and between now and then both trunks are contributing to lower thickening.