AusBonsai

Hello everyone! I will be very grateful for helping me with this little confusion.

This year I've collected that ca. 30+ year old field maple. As you can see it was hard pruned leaving just naked trunk alone. From one month later up to this day it was normally fed and watered adding sometimes some seaweed extract or biostimulator etc. It seems that especially one shoot is growing on a very strong sap path (it became twice as thick as the other shoots) so I've trimmed it down to one leaf pair (still growing strong). Some apical meristems from stronger shoots were removed. I also pinch the biggest leafs every now and then. No wiring.

My question is could/should I trim all top and middle shoots down to 1-2 leaf pairs now or let them grow, heal the wounds and trim them in next spring? I am confused because I've read in a book that I can trim the shoot which has reached to 4-6 leaf pairs but don't know if it is applicable also in such case (collected naked trunk tree).

Thank you in advance

Height: 63cm
Trunk diameter: 33cm (measured above the biggest right-hand root)


Collected - 04/16/2011

Top

Roots

05/28

06/22

Nice specimen. Great bark.

If the last photo is how it is now, I would let them grow a bit first for the tree to gather strength, and then prune back to first few sets of leaves. How long you let them grow depends on how thick they get and how thick you want them. The first ones pruned would be the top ones so they don't get too strong.

Look forward to seeing this one develop.

Best Regards

Tony

Hi aleph , nice trunk and bark on this one .I have a couple of large yamadori Field Maples -Acer Campestre , and they seem to be very slow to respond or recover .Mine are younger than yours going on the bark , they were 5m high when collected and very few roots .They put out spasmodic growth however i let them run riot for the first season and set an air layer on the better specimen , then trimmed them back hard for the next season . Last year i set some thread grafts around the base using Trident Maple whips on 1 specimen and Japanese Maple whips of the other .

I also set a thread graft on the upper section using a long shoot from the base of the ground growing tree .It took very quickly .Both trees are still struggling 1 is in the ground the other a large pot/container .Growth is hit or miss .and still very slow .I did take the air layer off 1 tree and it seems to be growing better , possibly because it has a better root mass .Even the root cutting i took seems to be slow , maybe it just this species of Maple .For the last 3 year they have only put out a maximum of 3-4 sets of leaves .Personally i think they are just a very slow growing maple , however i would hesitate to cut them back to 1 or 2 buds/shoots .

Cheers Alpineart

Thanks guys for your replies. Probably I will just let it grow and cut back next spring.

@alpineheart: thanks for your description - I wonder if your maple's slow grow is connected first with pure roots upon collection and second that it is not native maple in Oz as it is here in Poland. Mine seems responding quite fast and strong.

Hi Aleph , i don't see many growing in my town ,that could be the reason maybe the don't like the extreme heat in summer , upwards of 40 degree's here .Poor roots would be a contributing factor for sure hence the root thread grafts .Have to wait until i repot and dig out the trunks to see if the root fusing has worked .Time will tell next season as to how well they will perform .I plan to chop 1 specimen down by 70 % and carve the living daylights out of it just for the exercise , my Stihl need the cob webs blowing out of it . Hope to post it soon .Cheers Alpineart