No Bifurcation

[anthony burce]

When cutting back to two buds, I never get two buds growing. I only get one. What am I doing wrong? I follow Ryan Neils advice on fertilizing to get what I'm after which is good secondary branching. If I can't turn one branch into two, idk what I'm going to do with these guys.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

If the first bud starts growing, cut it back too after the second set of leaves, then it should activate the dormant bud.

 

[Shibui]

Not sure what's going on there. I almost always get 2 shoots after trimming JM twigs.
One possibility is you may be trimming too early. I get much better budding when the shoots have hardened a bit more but even when pinching extremely young shoots I usually see lots of new buds.
What stage is the tree at? With immature, developing trees I have better budding allowing most shoots to grow 3-6 sets of leaves then cut back. That also thickens the branches and trunk. Can't allow that long growth on well ramified branches because it causes them to thicken too much so shoots are pinched when very young.

The internodes appear to be very long on the twigs shown. Is it getting enough light? On branches with long internodes as shown I would always cut back the the previous node so I will not have a real long section in the future branch.

 

[sorce]

Can you find any natural ones on the rest of the tree? Seems to be some.

Are you sure there is a bud there?

Is it just this one or others as well?
If it's just this one it can be what it does.

Sorce