Baby Pine Development Question

[Srt8madness]

TLDR: Should I needle pluck?


So here's a 2 year old pine. I planted the seed in Jan/Feb of 2022 (IIRC). I repotted fall of 22 or spring 23. I should track these things better.

Anyway, this actually might be a shohin candidate, or just a bit over. Either is fine. It's popped buds all over the trunk.

I know young pines need to grow, grow, grow, and foliage is required for that. But I also want the buds to grow and keep low branches.

Should I pluck some needles to allow light to reach the bottom buds?

Pics included but not really useful.

 

[LuZiKui]

I've got a few trees that are just about the stage of development as yours.

I attended a workshop with Jonas Dupuich a couple weeks back and he recommended thinning needles, especially last years needles on trees like this in development. The thinking is you get more air and light to the lower buds. Also, he believes that if you have super dense growth you're more likely to have issues with bugs or diseases since it doesn't get as much air flow.

Once you clear out some of the old needles you should be able to see all of the buds that are emerging lower on the trunk. If you have spots where 2 or 3 buds are coming out of the same spot you can probably reduce down to 1.

 

[Dav4]

If this were mine, I would- 1) remove last year's needles, 2) pick your potential keeper branches and your sacrifices, 3) remove some of this year's needles on the apical sacrifice if it is significantly shading the lower keepers. The plan for the apical sacrifice is to have only one or two strongly growing buds each growing season... this improves the odds the tree won't abandon the smaller and weaker lower branching, 4) wire everything out if big enough.

The goal going forward is to develop low branches with movement and ramification close to the trunk, all while building the trunk.

 

[Wulfskaar]

I found these videos to be extremely helpful. I also have 3 year old JBP's.

 

[Srt8madness]

Thanks for the help!

 

[19Mateo83]

Thanks for the help!

I went through and did the exact same thing on the JBP I got from @cmeg1. I still need to thin out some of the higher branches, pick sacrificials and figure out what direction I want to take these. They are all getting pond baskets this spring.

 

[Dabbler]

It's Christmas - let them grow, let them grow, let them grow! I said that like the song if you couldn't tell