General comments

jeanluc83 said:
A lot of people seem to be starting hundreds of seeds. Are JBP really that unreliable. Ive grown pitch pine from seed and had about 80% germination rate. I did seedling cuttings one year and had about 50% success but I think that was because they kept getting disturbed.

I just can't imagine starting more than a couple hundred unless you want a couple hundred at the end. After a couple of years they are going to take up a lot of room. And if everyone who is participating in the contest is successful there will be a glut of JBP seedlings on the market.
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My plan is/was 50 under grow lights this winter, then another 25-50 in the spring. I'd prefer to do less and be efficient, but I have no idea what I'm doing, so I guess many of us are probably doing more than we need out of fear of all of them dying:)
 
jeanluc83 said:
A lot of people seem to be starting hundreds of seeds. Are JBP really that unreliable. Ive grown pitch pine from seed and had about 80% germination rate. I did seedling cuttings one year and had about 50% success but I think that was because they kept getting disturbed.

I just can't imagine starting more than a couple hundred unless you want a couple hundred at the end. After a couple of years they are going to take up a lot of room. And if everyone who is participating in the contest is successful there will be a glut of JBP seedlings on the market.
Click to expand...
I think the idea is that the more you start with, the better your chances of finding a few seedlings that are especially vigorous or have particularly desirable characteristics. I don't think people are realizing how much work this is going to be (though maybe I'm wrong about that). A few years ago I got "into" seeds and started a bunch of tridents, Japanese maples, and a few other species. Now I have dozens of plants that have outgrown their pots, need to be dealt with in some way whether that is simple repotting, rootwork, selling, whatever. I just don't have time to deal with them all effectively so the idea of adding a bunch of pines to the mix (I already have some young seedlings that I purchased) doesn't seem too wise. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to seeing what people do with them.

If I decide to participate (haven't ruled it out yet), I'd start with about 50 seeds and just see what happens. In this climate there's no way I'd be able to produce pines nearly as large or developed as someone in California or elsewhere in the south in 6 years anyway, no matter what I do.
 
coh said:
I don't think people are realizing how much work this is going to be
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That was my thought as well. The first couple of years are not bad but once you have to repot 50+ trees it starts to get to be work.

I'm thinking I'll probably start with 50 seeds too. Like you said this contest favors those down south. It's will still be fun though.
 
jeanluc83 said:
Take a look at the bonsai tonight link thread I posted a few days ago. It has answers to your questions.
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Thanks!;)

jeanluc83 said:
...if everyone who is participating in the contest is successful there will be a glut of JBP seedlings on the market.
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Hopefully the market will be absolutely flooded by the thousands of trees given away or sold by contestants here! When I first started out, I stayed away from pines altogether because I felt I lacked the knowledge and skills to provide care and attention to pines as bonsai. I had already killed a few garden center trees, so I didn't want to murder any of the pines that were grown specifically for bonsai($$$)

Maybe within the next decade, the people who are starting to learn bonsai will end up with some of the pines we start this January rather than the garden center pines with buds miles away from the trunk.
 
Is the cutting process really necessary? Las t year I got my 1 year seedling and cut the tap root and left like 4 radial roots starting within 6 mm (1/4 inch aprox) from the highest to lowest.
I had really bad success rate on seedling cuttings.
 
barrosinc said:
Is the cutting process really necessary? Las t year I got my 1 year seedling and cut the tap root and left like 4 radial roots starting within 6 mm (1/4 inch aprox) from the highest to lowest.
I had really bad success rate on seedling cuttings.
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Cuttings will increase your chances of a good, radial nebari and get buds down closer to the roots, but will definitely impact growth in that first year. I'm planning on doing cuttings, but will continue to grow on and work some of the non cutting JBP, too.
 
coh said:
I don't think people are realizing how much work this is going to be
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This is the mistake people have when they try to raise koi on their own. One adult female koi can spawn 300,000 eggs. There is almost no way to effectively and profitably raise that many koi - particularly when only 1% might be decent quality. Even if you throw them in a pond you end up having to waste 99% of your food, and the fish don't grow as fast and are far more prone to disease due to crowding. One of the keys to raising koi successfully is to be able to tell at a very early age (1/2") which fish are worth keeping and which ones you cull. First pass you might cull 50%. Then each time you sort them you cull another 50%. If you know what you're doing, you quickly go from 100,000's to 10,000's to 1,000's...

The key for this pine contest (at least for me) is to cull early, and cull often any trees that are weak or don't have the right characteristics. If I have ten relatively decent trees going into the last year, I feel I will be able to care for them down the home stretch. In general I am thinking:

(1) 1,000 seeds
(2) 500 survive germination and cutting
(3) Cull down to 250 best at the start of Year 2
(4) 100 start of Year 3
(5) 50 start of Year 4
(6) 25 start of Year 5
(7) 10 start of Year 6 (final year)

No way am I planning to try to raise 1000 pines for 6 years, LOL!
 
I'll keep that in mind when i open a fishery. :p
 
Timbo said:
Are they rated zones 4/5?
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With a big enough heater, anything is possible.

Part of why I decided to jump into this contest is that hopefully it will force me to learn a lot about what makes good JBP bonsai material at the seedling and sapling phases.

Besides reading/watching whichever resources I can find, I will be looking forward to folks posting their progress. I also hope that some of the more experienced among us will be willing to offer advice as we are making our cull vs. keep decisions.

And hey... Maybe in a couple or three years I will order a bunch of cheap pots from China, rent a van, and make my fortune selling "bonsai" on the side of the road.
 
Bonsai Nut said:
The key for this pine contest (at least for me) is to cull early, and cull often any trees that are weak or don't have the right characteristics.
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Once you get to year 2-3 and are down to 100 or so I have a feeling that it will be tough to decide which are keepers. At that point they will probably be all about the same. It will be technique that takes precedence over genetics from that point.

One of the hardest things to judge will be bark quality. You will really not know which have the best bark until several years in.
 
Bonsai Nut said:
(1) 1,000 seeds
(2) 500 survive germination and cutting
(3) Cull down to 250 best at the start of Year 2
(4) 100 start of Year 3
(5) 50 start of Year 4
(6) 25 start of Year 5
(7) 10 start of Year 6 (final year)
Click to expand...

I was thinking some more. You are still looking at 50-100 trees that will need to be repotted and have root work in the 3-5 year range.
 
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