Ryceman3's 6yr JBP Contest Entry

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Big and happy plants!! congrats

 

[Ryceman3]

Pretty much hit the end of the growing season now. Temperatures are coming down as we move into winter so I figure this is a good time to take stock and evaluate. I’m pretty happy with where my JBP have got to in less than a year. Photos below are of a tray before and after some trunk bending (for most of them). These are a tray of traditionally root pruned (once) seedlings, the growth I got on the stem cut ones was pretty similar. Thought I’d get some wire on some of these and give the trunks a chance to set over the dormant winter months, they were up to 200mm high, (approx 7” before bending) with bases around 7mm (just over 1/4”) in diameter, happy enough with that!
Plenty of roots appearing from the bottom of the pots both on traditionally root pruned and stem cut trees, maybe a re-pot for some in Spring and hopefully they continue on their merry way. Still plenty more to play with, over 50 that I have kept so will be doing a few other things also to keep it interesting, neagari etc... Loving this comp idea. ??

 

[Anthony]

I confess confusion with all these wirings. by the group.

If you project the trunk thickening to 2,5 cm [ 1 " ] at 15 cm [ 6 inches ]
how much of a twist or turn will be left ?
As the seedling straighten their trunks ?

Sifu's [ Adair's ] simple advice may make more sense,
plant at an angle,

Nice healthy seedlngs.
Good Day
Anthony

 

[Ryceman3]

I confess confusion with all these wirings. by the group.

If you project the trunk thickening to 2,5 cm [ 1 " ] at 15 cm [ 6 inches ]
how much of a twist or turn will be left ?
As the seedling straighten their trunks ?

Sifu's [ Adair's ] simple advice may make more sense,
plant at an angle,

Nice healthy seedlngs.
Good Day
Anthony

You may be right Anthony, but as this is my first time growing pine from seed, I am looking at any/all options and trying to vary the treatment on the seedlings I have managed to propogate so I can see for myself what works and what isn't so effective. That is why work that I have done to date has been in batches ... so I can gauge the outcome comparative to the other seedlings. I wouldn't call it scientific (I mean, I don't have "controls" and I don't write copious detailed notes each time I work on some trees), but I think it gives me an understanding and some knowledge I can use on future batches ... hopefully!

 

[Anthony]

Try drawing.
Image copied / traced off your screen.
Measure 2.5 cm at the base and go up 15 cm with a taper.

Drawings can save time.
Anthony

 

[Ryceman3]

This weekend I decided to get into repotting my contest pines before Spring comes around for us. It was nice to feel a bit more "hands on" with them since they have really just been sitting around and waiting for things to warm up for a few months now. I was very keen to check out these pine roots and compare the differences between stem cutting and standard root prune techniques.
First up was a JBP that underwent standard root pruning in October last year ...

Pretty pleased with the root development, I trimmed back and potted up into something with a bit more room ...


Next up was a tree that had been stem cut, also last October...

Also good root development - perhaps a touch denser/finer than the first one - but at first glance the difference appeared marginal to me. I was very happy with the radial spread of roots I had around these guys. Nice and even (no gaps) and on both these examples there were 9+ roots giving good spread. The girth at the base of the roots, particularly on this stem cut example was something I was very pleased with ...

Overall I repotted about 2 dozen of the JBPs (also a few other pine species) and had similar results with the majority of them. They are all now camped back on the rack ready for some sun.

I still have about 20 JBP or more to go which I hope to get to in the next week or so. Bring on the growing season!
Cheers...

 

[Ryceman3]

All of my JBP have now been potted up and are ready for the growing season ... the majority were potted up as above but I also tried a neagari on one to see how it pans out...

Never done this before so we'll see how it goes. I also noticed on a couple that I wired at the end of April the wire had cut in to the trunk quite a bit ... plenty of expansion going on even over the winter period!
I have since removed it ... all should be fine.

All in all, I have a few pines ready to grow on from here, lots of candles are already extending quite a lot ...

 

[win320]

wow! your JBP and Scots pine thread is one of the best. thanks for posting.
One different note : what kind of marker you use to write on the pots Because I also want to keep a record of dates and history which does not wash away

 

[Ryceman3]

what kind of marker you use to write on the pots...

Hi win320 ... welcome to the forum and I'm glad you like my progressions, hopefully they keep progressing!
In relation to the marker, I use this :

Nothing particularly special ... just something that says permanent and waterproof seems to be all you need.

 

[win320]

Hi win320 ... welcome to the forum and I'm glad you like my progressions, hopefully they keep progressing!
In relation to the marker, I use this :
View attachment 263291
Nothing particularly special ... just something that says permanent and waterproof seems to be all you need.

Thank you very much.

Also I will contact you for your experience and expertise on Scots pine cutting.

I will send personal message with my question (I hope u don’t mind)
Thanks again for help

 

[Ryceman3]

Also I will contact you for your experience and expertise on Scots pine cutting.

I will send personal message with my question (I hope u don’t mind)

Sure, if I can provide you with something I’m happy to help. You can do a private message if you prefer but feel free to post it in my Scots pine thread (or your own) if you like too... it might help other BNutters and you may get input from others that know just as much (probably more) than I do!

 

[win320]

UPDATE :
I have had reasonable success with my JBP seeds, enough to play with now and I have planted a few extras as insurance if my experiments don't go according to plan. I think at the moment I have around 50 seedlings ... so today I did a bit of work on some of them.
I was keen to try stem cutting but when I pulled a few seedlings getting ready to chop them right off, I found they had some reasonable roots within an inch or so of the foliage, so for these ones I thought I would just do some regular root pruningand see how that goes. They are all labelled so I will be able to see how they compare with one another.
Here's some shots of the root cutting and how I went about it :
View attachment 213575View attachment 213576

I also did some stem cutting too. Hopefully these seedlings aren't too mature for the process, Ideally I would have done this 2 weeks ago or so but I was on vacation so they had to wait. My technique is essentially the same as most others, the main difference being that instead of using hormone powder by itself, I mix it with Clonex gel to make a paste and apply that to the end of the cutting. I use this paste with layering and I find it doesn't wash off so easily so I thought it was worth a shot here too. A few pics of the process below :
View attachment 213577
View attachment 213578
When they were all potted up I put them under domes to keep in the humidity and hopefully increase the chances of success...
View attachment 213579
All up I think I did around 24 stem cuttings and about the same of just root cuttings ... we'll see how they get on over the next few weeks.

Wow! that's brilliant.
Thanks for sharing

I have a few questions (sorry too many, I am a newbie) :

1. what is the soil mix did you use for stem cutting ones?
2. What was the temperature when you did the stem cutting🌡? when did you remove the dome?
3. How long did it take to get the roots on stem cutting ?
4. Did any stem cutting wither?
5. Did you try the double cut method (some of the people on the internet I have been seeing using double-cut i.e. after the first roots appear in the stem cut, they examine roots after 4 weeks and to increate the roots and they cut the stem again and apply rooting hormone? which makes its roots starting at the first needle itself. In some cases it gives twin trunk style as well).

Thanks

 

[Ryceman3]

Wow! that's brilliant.
Thanks for sharing

I have a few questions (sorry too many, I am a newbie) :

1. what is the soil mix did you use for stem cutting ones?
2. What was the temperature when you did the stem cutting🌡? when did you remove the dome?
3. How long did it take to get the roots on stem cutting ?
4. Did any stem cutting wither?
5. Did you try the double cut method (some of the people on the internet I have been seeing using double-cut i.e. after the first roots appear in the stem cut, they examine roots after 4 weeks and to increate the roots and they cut the stem again and apply rooting hormone? which makes its roots starting at the first needle itself. In some cases it gives twin trunk style as well).

Thanks

Hi win320 ... here's the answers to your questions above based on what I did last year :

1. Prepare pots with regular bonsai mix (you can see the size of the pots in the post, they are 4" square). My mix includes pumice, pine bark, lava and some zeolite mainly but whatever you use (assuming it is well draining) is fine. I then used a screwdriver handle to make an indent in the centre of the mix in each pot about 25mm (1") or so deep, then I filled that hole with a mix of sifted fine zeolite and coir peat. This finer mix is meant to keep the moisture close to the stem as it produces roots, I think prop sand is used often for this - but this is what I had so this is what I used! Water thoroughly now, before you insert the stem cut seedling so you don't have to later (this will lessen the chance of the hormone mix washing away). Then use a wire or something to make a small whole in the middle of the coir/zeolite to put your stem cut seedling.

2. I stem cut in the middle of October - but remember I am in the Southern Hemisphere so this is mid-Spring for us. The average daytime temps for October where I am at are approx 22degrees celsius, dropping to around 12 degrees celsius overnight. I also did a few later on (December I think?) and while these also worked, they definitely weren't as vigorous with growth as the earlier ones. I removed the domes about 2 weeks or so after they were cut, and I misted for a few days after just to keep the humidity up during transition to open air. You must be careful to keep them out of direct sun whilst covered by the domes - nobody wants cooked pines.

3. I was confident of roots forming when I noticed new foliar growth/stems extending etc about 5 weeks later. I never pulled any out to have a look so I guess roots would've been visible before that.

4. I think I lost around 5 seedlings all up ... not bad as I would've stem cut 70+ both in October and December combined. All of these withered and died (i.e: not blown over or whatever, just didn't root)

5. I didn't try double cutting. I have seen the results and it's an interesting technique which I might experiment with using a few of this years seedlings, I'm not sure yet.

Hope that helps.

 

[win320]

Hi win320 ... here's the answers to your questions above based on what I did last year :

1. Prepare pots with regular bonsai mix (you can see the size of the pots in the post, they are 4" square). My mix includes pumice, pine bark, lava and some zeolite mainly but whatever you use (assuming it is well draining) is fine. I then used a screwdriver handle to make an indent in the centre of the mix in each pot about 25mm (1") or so deep, then I filled that hole with a mix of sifted fine zeolite and coir peat. This finer mix is meant to keep the moisture close to the stem as it produces roots, I think prop sand is used often for this - but this is what I had so this is what I used! Water thoroughly now, before you insert the stem cut seedling so you don't have to later (this will lessen the chance of the hormone mix washing away). Then use a wire or something to make a small whole in the middle of the coir/zeolite to put your stem cut seedling.

2. I stem cut in the middle of October - but remember I am in the Southern Hemisphere so this is mid-Spring for us. The average daytime temps for October where I am at are approx 22degrees celsius, dropping to around 12 degrees celsius overnight. I also did a few later on (December I think?) and while these also worked, they definitely weren't as vigorous with growth as the earlier ones. I removed the domes about 2 weeks or so after they were cut, and I misted for a few days after just to keep the humidity up during transition to open air. You must be careful to keep them out of direct sun whilst covered by the domes - nobody wants cooked pines.

3. I was confident of roots forming when I noticed new foliar growth/stems extending etc about 5 weeks later. I never pulled any out to have a look so I guess roots would've been visible before that.

4. I think I lost around 5 seedlings all up ... not bad as I would've stem cut 70+ both in October and December combined. All of these withered and died (i.e: not blown over or whatever, just didn't root)

5. I didn't try double cutting. I have seen the results and it's an interesting technique which I might experiment with using a few of this years seedlings, I'm not sure yet.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for such a detailed answer.

I appreciate it a lot. I hope it will help others

 

[Ryceman3]

As you guys up North start winding down the growing season for me is just ramping up so thought I'd post a couple of pics to update development. Not too much to report in terms of technique application etc... just water and fert and let them go for it as the sun begins to warm things up down here. I have already noticed significant development particularly in these JBP so things are travelling along nicely.


This one has good candle extension. The steel rule shows 200mm (8") from the soil but that centre candle in itself is 275mm (11") of growth this season. In terms of height/elongation, this is the biggest I have, a couple of others are close to this but most are showing candle extension closer to 200mm... maybe a bit less.

Most have good bud/branch development occurring down low, like the image above, which I am looking to nurture as this is where the final tree will come from.

And here's a bunch of 'em just sitting out and waiting for those clouds to go away and the sun to warm stuff up... c'mon sun!

 

[cmeg1]

Nice!

 

[tgooboon]

What size pot have you gone up to?
Did you consider using squat pot?

 

[Ryceman3]

What size pot have you gone up to?
Did you consider using squat pot?

My pines are now in these TEKU pots ...

They are approx. 100mm (4") diameter and about 90mm (3.75") deep, so whilst theyre not squat pots exactly they are reasonably shallow... volume is just under 500ml.
I went with these for 2 reasons.
1. If I wanted a squat pot of the same volume it would need to be a larger diameter - meaning it would take up more room on my bench and I don't have the room!
2. Compared to a squat pot, these worked out a little cheaper and I am inclined to go with cheaper if I think the results will be the same.

 

[Ryceman3]

A quick update given I have something to report.
I have taken some of my comp pines and planted them out down at my in-laws place where there is a bit of room ... cos there's none at my place!
They are not the best gardeners in the world but I'll be making sure to remind them to water and will try and get down there to look after them myself while they settle in. I'm hoping that once they get set they'll be slightly less maintenance and therefore will require less supervision. In essence, I'm really just looking for them to GROW...
Plenty of good growth on the roots since they were worked 3-4 months ago. I just laid them out (no cutting) and buried them as is.
Will be interested to see how these progress and develop compared to the ones I am leaving in pots. I have planted 9 of my JBP in the ground (along with a few other pines).

 

[Shibui]

A few years ago I just slipped some pines into my grow beds without cutting or untangling the roots because it was a bit late in spring for traditional root pruning. They grew well but when I dug them a few years later the roots that were in the pot had thickened and fused together into a solid mass - exactly the shape and size of the pots they'd come out of...... Not the best nebari I've ever produced.
I was able to recover something from them but I won't be doing that again soon.

Good luck with these ones.