AusBonsai

A while back I bought a bunch of 6 month old pine seedlings from a guy which are supposedly JBP. He was also growing mature JBP. When I arrived at his place he had several large mature JBP in his front yard (at least 6ft tall) as well as many potted larger JBP.

When I inspected the seedlings they were also 2 needles per sheath and looked fine to me. All of this made me confident in what I was buying.

With recent winter growth there are a small percentage (maybe 5%) of the seedlings have put out growth that is different These seedlings still have 2 needles per sheeth below but on top it has put out leaves like thin blades (but not in pairs). See pictures below:
Pines are very much unknown territory for me. So maybe this is normal? There is also a possibility there were some seeds from another species of pine that were mixed in. This guy was growing a few different pine species.

I'm trying to get some suggestions on either variety or species if these are not p. thunbergii?

TimIAm wrote: ↑September 24th, 2023, 2:47 pm
With recent winter growth there are a small percentage (maybe 5%) of the seedlings have put out growth that is different These seedlings still have 2 needles per sheeth below but on top it has put out leaves like thin blades (but not in pairs). See pictures below:

Thats just juvenile growth your seeing there. Nothing to worry about. I remember when I started with pines and i had that same growth all over. You can find similar posts from people asking the same question.

Yes. Juvenile growth. I'm actually surprised last year's section has adult needles as they often don't show up until around 12 months or so. My guess is you are looking after them better so they've decided to put on a growth spurt this spring and have reverted to juvenile growth as a result.
You should start to see 2 needle adult foliage later in summer.

I've been a bit lucky. I got them at a very good price but they were planted way too close to each other, which is why the lower sections look a bit rough. Did an emergency repot (April this year) and only managed to lose a small number of them.

They have really put on some decent growth in this first few weeks of spring. I have also been very lucky because almost every single one has budded at the lowest possible point, in an area that had already browned off from being planted too close. Following what R3 has been doing, I'm guessing this low budding will be essential for future development of the tree.