AusBonsai

Hey all, I have a funny growth pattern happening with my trident maple. It was trunk chopped about two years ago & developed some good growth all over it and seem fairly healthy. this year I re-potted it into another training pot & cut back most branches to a few that I though I might use for a leader & main first few branches. During this process I only removes a few roots nothing major.

But as you can see it has absolutely tiny leaves in big ball patches. It currently gets about 4-5 hours of direct sunlight a day & a light fertilize with Seasol Power Feeder once every 2 weeks. Not sure if I should give it full sun & see how it goes. Should I trim back the leaves & start again ?

Trident Maple at the beginning of spring after having a major prune
Trident maple 2 months of growth & strange growth at that. Please ignore the chop line it was my plan to re-cut & clean this up once I had selected the first few branches during this growing season but that has changed at the moment due to its development.

What do you think could be causing this?????


Cheers
Ryan

Hi Ryan

You are not alone. We have been trying to work out a solution to this since last season.
See here
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=456&hilit=burn%27t+deformed+leaves

Viral infection?
I am by no means an expert though..

If it is viral how is this treated? I was kept in a pretty salty environment would this be a factor as well. If its thrips tho I can use a spray i guess?

Cheers

If it is Viral It has been stated there is nothing you can do. Since others have had this issue on trees for several seasons I think they would be dead by now if it was viral.

Be sure your soil is draining properly and the roots are getting plenty of air. Your problem is similar to my trident [but mine is much worse and slightly different]. I would suggest spraying with Mancozeb fortnightly. You might be well advised to partially or fully defoliate before spraying. I have treated mine with Mancozeb and then another fungicide that was recommended [unnamed because it is not available in Australia for domestic use]. I have just defoliated the tree and sprayed heavily again and am waiting for the new growth to see if the solution suits the problem. If this works I will post on ausbonsai. If not I will just tear my hair out..... I've been working 3 years on this problem with this trident.

It's just stressed.

They go like this because the roots can't supply enough water to the leaves. Could be over watering, but really, 4-5 hours of sun after repotting???? I really think its too much sun. After a repot, my tridents don't get direct sun for about four weeks and only when showing strong growth.

Also,your soil looks like it would hold lots of water. Place the tree in a shady spot out of the wind and hold back on the watering, it should show signs of recovery in 2-3 weeks, introduce direct sun slowly.

Paul

PS the bald spots are the internodes.

I would have to disagree Paul. Morning sun (morning sun is upto 11am) in early spring I find very healthy for my re potted trees Tridents included. As I stated before I don't put shade cloth up until the temps get into the 30s.
I have in fact found the opposite of what you say the more sun they get the better they are. My happiest tridents are still in full sun and powering.

It seems that many people with this trident deformed leaf at the moment are in the NSW area. Some of them are VERY experienced bonsai gardeners with advice from the most experienced in the country. If this was as simple as over watering I don't think they would be talking about it