Broad Question About Pinching Shoots and Ramification

[Bonsai Forest]

Regarding spruce and cryptomeria and similar foliage growth:

Does pinching off 1/3” length of growth from the newly grown, fleshy, bright green tips at the ends of branches push the auxin further back into the interior of the entire branch branch so that the:

a) primary portion of the whole branch stops elongating and getting too leggy (thus preventing foliage from being further away from the tree as a whole)?

b) promote the growth and maturity of wood on secondary branches/tertiary growth?

c) If this is accurate, does that mean one is essentially pinching their way all over the tree to achieve a tightly ramified and eventually refined tree?

d) as understand, directly top/bottom and otherwise unnecessary growth can be pruned off, right? (unwanted clusters of growth whether spruce or cryptomeria)

I am also a little confused about pruning a branch to shorten it but keep it. Featured below is a branch I pruned off of my Cryptomeria Black Dragon tree:


This branch was pruned in half last Summer (near end of Summer), the end of the branch healed over, and then began to back bud like crazy (as they seem to willingly back bud) thus what I ended up with by now is a less-than-half-sized-branch with super tight foliage growing into what looks like a pad.

Can I simply do this with Cryptomeria all over the tree to achieve my desired length/size branches and it will stay short and then mature similarly with compact pads?

Can I do the same with Spruce? Or is this all basically the difference between ‘pinching vs. clip and grow’? I am trying to understand how to achieve the maturity and ramification of the primaries and secondaries etc. Sorry for the length of my post.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Does pinching off 1/3” length of growth from the newly grown, fleshy, bright green tips at the ends of branches push the auxin further back into the interior of the entire branch branch so that the:

Not necessarily, no. It repositions the auxin production from the removed shoot, to others further back: auxin is produced in all growing and extending tissues, some tissues more than others. Since that needs some time to take over, cytokinins can activate dormant buds.

a) primary portion of the whole branch stops elongating and getting too leggy (thus preventing foliage from being further away from the tree as a whole)?

Also not necessarily, if we take into account that the auxin production just moves further back, it can still elongate branches that in turn become leggy.
Pruning is a temporary manual removal of a production site, but all plants will want to rebuild a production site.

b) promote the growth and maturity of wood on secondary branches/tertiary growth?

Here too, not by default. Because the newly elongating shoots will expand and grow as the new auxin production site is activated, it might actually turn less woody and more greeny. So yes, it promotes growth, but rapid growth is preventing wood from forming.

c) If this is accurate, does that mean one is essentially pinching their way all over the tree to achieve a tightly ramified and eventually refined tree?

Yes, by pinching and letting it grow, then pinch again, yes. There's a balance between "doing just enough pinching to ramify" and "doing enough pinching to weaken the tree". In some species, this line is paper thin. In other species, it's a lot wider and you have way more wiggle room in the sense that it might not hurt the plant at all if you continuously pinch a couple consecutive years.
In spruce for instance, I let the shoots run freely. Then when they stop elongating and start forming very soft buds (usually 3-4 weeks after the start of the growth) I pinch back. The second flush will be weaker and more ramified, but I'm letting that one run for the rest of the summer and pinch back to live buds at the end of the summer. This way I use the auxin influx to fortify the root system and to keep the plant healthy, but I pinch back to ramify over summer and winter. Some years I let it grow freely and only pinch back in fall. It depends on what I did in the spring and winter and what the overall health status is.

d) as understand, directly top/bottom and otherwise unnecessary growth can be pruned off, right? (unwanted clusters of growth whether spruce or cryptomeria)

Can be, yes. But also consider that you can wire a branch and twist it. If a fork of branches appears on top of a solidified branch, it might be better in the long run to wire the branch and twist it 45 degrees until it forms a nice flat pad. If you always keep cutting the upward and downward growing stuff, you might end up with a design that doesn't look right.
Twisting wood in all kinds of directions sets you up for awesome future jins too; because the woody structure snakes its way to the tips, if a branch is ever turned into a jin it will have a wild and naturalistic look to the wood.

I hope that doesn't complicate things for you, since I'm stepping away from the strictly polar auxin transport and like to see more people open up to the (proven) "new" scientific insight of local auxin biosynthesis. If we incorporate that idea in our techniques, it all makes a bit more sense why plants respond in a certain way. Polar auxin transport isn't disproven at all, but it's super important that we take into account that there is a second, more localized, route for auxins that plays a role as important as the polar transport.

 

[Bonsai Forest]

Not necessarily, no. It repositions the auxin production from the removed shoot, to others further back: auxin is produced in all growing and extending tissues, some tissues more than others. Since that needs some time to take over, cytokinins can activate dormant buds.

Also not necessarily, if we take into account that the auxin production just moves further back, it can still elongate branches that in turn become leggy.
Pruning is a temporary manual removal of a production site, but all plants will want to rebuild a production site.


Here too, not by default. Because the newly elongating shoots will expand and grow as the new auxin production site is activated, it might actually turn less woody and more greeny. So yes, it promotes growth, but rapid growth is preventing wood from forming.

Yes, by pinching and letting it grow, then pinch again, yes. There's a balance between "doing just enough pinching to ramify" and "doing enough pinching to weaken the tree". In some species, this line is paper thin. In other species, it's a lot wider and you have way more wiggle room in the sense that it might not hurt the plant at all if you continuously pinch a couple consecutive years.
In spruce for instance, I let the shoots run freely. Then when they stop elongating and start forming very soft buds (usually 3-4 weeks after the start of the growth) I pinch back. The second flush will be weaker and more ramified, but I'm letting that one run for the rest of the summer and pinch back to live buds at the end of the summer. This way I use the auxin influx to fortify the root system and to keep the plant healthy, but I pinch back to ramify over summer and winter. Some years I let it grow freely and only pinch back in fall. It depends on what I did in the spring and winter and what the overall health status is.


Can be, yes. But also consider that you can wire a branch and twist it. If a fork of branches appears on top of a solidified branch, it might be better in the long run to wire the branch and twist it 45 degrees until it forms a nice flat pad. If you always keep cutting the upward and downward growing stuff, you might end up with a design that doesn't look right.
Twisting wood in all kinds of directions sets you up for awesome future jins too; because the woody structure snakes its way to the tips, if a branch is ever turned into a jin it will have a wild and naturalistic look to the wood.

I hope that doesn't complicate things for you, since I'm stepping away from the strictly polar auxin transport and like to see more people open up to the (proven) "new" scientific insight of local auxin biosynthesis. If we incorporate that idea in our techniques, it all makes a bit more sense why plants respond in a certain way. Polar auxin transport isn't disproven at all, but it's super important that we take into account that there is a second, more localized, route for auxins that plays a role as important as the polar transport.

Thank you for all the responses to my questions. This helps a lot.

One of the reasons I’ve been stuck, mentally, on the subject of pad creation is the fact that vertical growth seems to be essential for making pads that cascade down the center of a downward angled branch.