What's the Deal with A.P. 'Shin deshojo' Layers? Brainstorming Needed.

[0soyoung]

No

No. I think perhaps the mother tree lived with the disease. Sort of like a relatively healthy person living with the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. But when weakened, the bacteria prevails. So an airlayer might eventually die from losing its fight. I have a few shin Deshojo airlayers. One I still have, while the others sold. It is not strong so I ledft it to grow freely. This year is looking better.

So maybe I should apply some kind of systemic? Maybe even to the wad of sphagnum while roots are developing? I've never used any systemic - do you have a recommendation?
Bacterial? Streptomycin?
Soak the sphagnum with peroxide solution periodically?

I do have a crazy thing with the spring leaves on the shoots of the previous fall growth. They usually drop and are replaced by normal shin deshojo leaves in the second flush. I used to think this was fungal, but I've now discarded that notion.

 

[thumblessprimate1]

So maybe I should apply some kind of systemic? Maybe even to the wad of sphagnum while roots are developing? I've never used any systemic - do you have a recommendation?
Bacterial? Streptomycin?
Soak the sphagnum with peroxide solution periodically?

I do have a crazy thing with the spring leaves on the shoots of the previous fall growth. They usually drop and are replaced by normal shin deshojo leaves in the second flush. I used to think this was fungal, but I've now discarded that notion.

View attachment 190951

Yuck. Sorry, I have no recommendations.

 

[Shima]

Indeed I have. It is my preferred way, but I've never figured out a way to affect it on a horizontal branch. My layers are of horizontal-ish branches, so ...

I've done this method on horizontal branches. You just have to get creative with secure anchoring. One way is to use bailing wire (it's stiff) from holes in the pot to close branches. Cutting two V's in the top edge of the pot maybe half way down to allow for moss on top. Hard to describe but hope you get the drift.
Also I've had failures from too damp moss rotting the top cut when using super strength foil so I seal the top with bungee-type cord. Also on all of my layers I use full strength Dip-N Gro.

 

[River's Edge]

I'm pretty sure that's what happened to my Deshojo.
I saw these signs that something was not good with the roots this spring:

• many dead branches
• most of the buds looked dry and would not swell
• darker spots on the main trunk better visible when the drunk was wet

When I repotted it, trying to save it, I found a lot of dead roots. We didn't have a particularly cold winter (last year's was much colder) but I think the combination of too much moisture and cold eventually killed it.

View attachment 190878

It is more about the timing then the temperature. If there is water retained around the roots, or they have just swollen with fresh watering then the bursting is more of an issue when it freezes.

 

[Johnnyd]

I’m looking for help to figure out why my a.p. Shin deshojo is so difficult to propagate by air layering.


Over the last 7 years or so, I’ve attempted something like 20, give or take, air layers of my a.p. Shin deshojo landscape specimen. Except for a couple of occasions that the girdle was bridged, I’ve always gotten harvestable layers in one season. I’ve always left the sphagnum in place and potted the layer in Turface with the stem secured to a bamboo support pole or two screwed to the wall of the pot so that there would be no movement to damage the roots. The layers have always thrived through the end of the season. The following spring they leaf out and then, around the point of hardening. collapse, regardless of whether left in situ or repotted ‘as buds swell’.


That is, except for one from three years ago (layered/harvested in 2015) that is still going strong and another from the year before last (layered/harvested in 2016) that made it through this past winter and is limping along now after nearly dying last season.


Just yesterday I did a little autopsy of two 2017 layers that just died. This year I’ve noted necrosis (i.e., ‘black’ bark) of the trunk (which just appeared in the last week), just above the root collar or soil line - the bark is still green above. You should see this necrosis in the following pix. The first pair of pix are of the root ‘ball’ popped from the pot and the necrosis on one of the two. The other pair are of the root 'ball' after washing and combing the roots of the other 2017 layer. In both instances I found a (very) few white, growing root tips.

View attachment 190638View attachment 190639View attachment 190640View attachment 190641

• Lots of roots.
• Thrives.
• Then dies the following spring
  • necrosis at the base of the trunk.

I need ideas of why this is happening.

I have one that has been air layered and separated last September. It looks like it's about to leaf out. I have some phyton 27 systemic. Would this be a good time to use it. I've also been using your h2o2 solution every few days.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

This looks like what I've seen in tissue culture.
Plants did not respond to auxins and their growth pattern is naturally slow. So it took around 10-20 weeks for cultures to resume growth, but they never produced roots. Usually after 5-6 weeks on culture, blackening around the cut site happened, phenols started leaking, causing orange and black discolorations and inhibiting all growth.
In sterile conditions, the plants died from something that looked like an infection. We ran the tests, everything was sterile. The compounds inhibited restoration as well as growth and rooting.

The shock and damage of handling was the root cause.
We set up a few experiments from the books to combat this problem.

- introduction of vitamin C to the medium, at 144mg/L the penolic bleeding stopped for large parts, we added activated charcoal to soak up those leftover phenolic compounds.
- we switched from 'always auxin' medium to a shock and awe approach; 2 weeks on a medium high in auxins and vit C. 6 weeks on a medium without auxins (and with vit. C and charcoal).

We didn't get them to root, but we did keep them alive in culture. Now we have established rootless cultures that we can handle, multiply and experiment on further.

I'm thinking the charcoal could benefit your air layer behavior. In a practical sense, this means you do your air layer per regular protocol, and a few weeks later slap some powdered activated charcoal on the wound. It's a cheap solution in which I see zero risks.

 

[River's Edge]

I’m looking for help to figure out why my a.p. Shin deshojo is so difficult to propagate by air layering.


Over the last 7 years or so, I’ve attempted something like 20, give or take, air layers of my a.p. Shin deshojo landscape specimen. Except for a couple of occasions that the girdle was bridged, I’ve always gotten harvestable layers in one season. I’ve always left the sphagnum in place and potted the layer in Turface with the stem secured to a bamboo support pole or two screwed to the wall of the pot so that there would be no movement to damage the roots. The layers have always thrived through the end of the season. The following spring they leaf out and then, around the point of hardening. collapse, regardless of whether left in situ or repotted ‘as buds swell’.


That is, except for one from three years ago (layered/harvested in 2015) that is still going strong and another from the year before last (layered/harvested in 2016) that made it through this past winter and is limping along now after nearly dying last season.


Just yesterday I did a little autopsy of two 2017 layers that just died. This year I’ve noted necrosis (i.e., ‘black’ bark) of the trunk (which just appeared in the last week), just above the root collar or soil line - the bark is still green above. You should see this necrosis in the following pix. The first pair of pix are of the root ‘ball’ popped from the pot and the necrosis on one of the two. The other pair are of the root 'ball' after washing and combing the roots of the other 2017 layer. In both instances I found a (very) few white, growing root tips.

View attachment 190638View attachment 190639View attachment 190640View attachment 190641

• Lots of roots.
• Thrives.
• Then dies the following spring
  • necrosis at the base of the trunk.

I need ideas of why this is happening.

I note in your description that you leave the sphagnum in place when potting up after the air layer. Have you tried removing the sphagnum before potting up! To make this easier to do and less damaging to the new roots i mix the sphagnum with fine served pumice for air layering purposes. The spaghnum is chopped fine as well. The mix is easy to tease out from the new roots when replanting! This approach may alleviate the issue of root deterioration after planting.
You might also try experimenting with a soil component other than turface to see if it makes a difference due to particle size, structure or water retention capacity.

 

[PiñonJ]

I’m looking for help to figure out why my a.p. Shin deshojo is so difficult to propagate by air layering.


Over the last 7 years or so, I’ve attempted something like 20, give or take, air layers of my a.p. Shin deshojo landscape specimen. Except for a couple of occasions that the girdle was bridged, I’ve always gotten harvestable layers in one season. I’ve always left the sphagnum in place and potted the layer in Turface with the stem secured to a bamboo support pole or two screwed to the wall of the pot so that there would be no movement to damage the roots. The layers have always thrived through the end of the season. The following spring they leaf out and then, around the point of hardening. collapse, regardless of whether left in situ or repotted ‘as buds swell’.


That is, except for one from three years ago (layered/harvested in 2015) that is still going strong and another from the year before last (layered/harvested in 2016) that made it through this past winter and is limping along now after nearly dying last season.


Just yesterday I did a little autopsy of two 2017 layers that just died. This year I’ve noted necrosis (i.e., ‘black’ bark) of the trunk (which just appeared in the last week), just above the root collar or soil line - the bark is still green above. You should see this necrosis in the following pix. The first pair of pix are of the root ‘ball’ popped from the pot and the necrosis on one of the two. The other pair are of the root 'ball' after washing and combing the roots of the other 2017 layer. In both instances I found a (very) few white, growing root tips.

View attachment 190638View attachment 190639View attachment 190640View attachment 190641

• Lots of roots.
• Thrives.
• Then dies the following spring
  • necrosis at the base of the trunk.

I need ideas of why this is happening.

I don’t know anything about plant pathogens, but from a general microbiology perspective, the purplish discoloration brings to mind Pseudomonas.

 

[Johnnyd]

This looks like what I've seen in tissue culture.
Plants did not respond to auxins and their growth pattern is naturally slow. So it took around 10-20 weeks for cultures to resume growth, but they never produced roots. Usually after 5-6 weeks on culture, blackening around the cut site happened, phenols started leaking, causing orange and black discolorations and inhibiting all growth.
In sterile conditions, the plants died from something that looked like an infection. We ran the tests, everything was sterile. The compounds inhibited restoration as well as growth and rooting.

The shock and damage of handling was the root cause.
We set up a few experiments from the books to combat this problem.

- introduction of vitamin C to the medium, at 144mg/L the penolic bleeding stopped for large parts, we added activated charcoal to soak up those leftover phenolic compounds.
- we switched from 'always auxin' medium to a shock and awe approach; 2 weeks on a medium high in auxins and vit C. 6 weeks on a medium without auxins (and with vit. C and charcoal).

We didn't get them to root, but we did keep them alive in culture. Now we have established rootless cultures that we can handle, multiply and experiment on further.

I'm thinking the charcoal could benefit your air layer behavior. In a practical sense, this means you do your air layer per regular protocol, and a few weeks later slap some powdered activated charcoal on the wound. It's a cheap solution in which I see zero risks.

This is some great information! I've heard of vitamin b helping root issues but not c. I agree with charcoal being incorporated into soil mix but it never occurred to me to use it in an air layer.
I had a similar issue where about 16 weeks after the layer was made there were no roots but above the layer was swollen. I sliced into the bottom edge with a grafting knife dipped in clonex. I made about 10 vertical cuts around the base. Within 2 weeks numerous roots emerged. Coincidence or catalyst?

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

This is some great information! I've heard of vitamin b helping root issues but not c. I agree with charcoal being incorporated into soil mix but it never occurred to me to use it in an air layer.
I had a similar issue where about 16 weeks after the layer was made there were no roots but above the layer was swollen. I sliced into the bottom edge with a grafting knife dipped in clonex. I made about 10 vertical cuts around the base. Within 2 weeks numerous roots emerged. Coincidence or catalyst?

Catalyst for sure! Vitamin B has a different function in plants than C. Ascorbic acid prevents oxidative stress (caused by damage, like using a knife on a trunk). Some plant cells are programmed to die if they sense something is wrong. Vitamin C and charcoal both inhibit as well as mask the chemical signs; we trick the plant into believing nothing happened and that they should just do as they're told.

 

[0soyoung]

The seeming inapplicability of your tissue culture experience, @Wires_Guy_wires, is that our layers generated adventitious roots last season, were harvested and potted last Aug/Sep, and subsequently produced a lot of root growth before winter set in. It now has been close to a year since the girdle was cut.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

The seeming inapplicability of your tissue culture experience, @Wires_Guy_wires, is that our layers generated adventitious roots last season, were harvested and potted last Aug/Sep, and subsequently produced a lot of root growth before winter set in. It now has been close to a year since the girdle was cut.

But have the wounds healed in that time? I mean, sure there are roots. But there's still a large portion of bare trunk after a separation; a cutting with roots on the side, in essence. I don't know the air layer MO for maples, but I haven't read about people closing the bottom with cut paste or anything - I haven't looked either, so that's why I ask. This makes me think that that might be an issue; if you have serious bleeding from the trunk after a separation, then the roots will be affected as well, and the foliage would be the last to go in the next season.
In our tissue cultures it worked the same way, we achieved callus formation, but since the wounds didn't close, over time most cultures died due to bleeding and it's apoptotic effect. Stems/Trunks started to go black but stayed solid; no signs of biological degradation (like with fungi or bacteria), just sudden death, foliage would continue to grow for a few months even - in a rare case for 6 months, healing just was too slow and the plant quite literally killed itself with its own blood. Those were cuttings of half an inch, a larger branch could take longer to decimate, especially singe maples have carbohydrate storage and the plants we experienced this with in the lab did not have a lot of internal storage capacity.

I'm not saying it's the answer to what's happening, but it might point you in a direction to look for a solid answer. I've seen something similar, and found a way to combat it.

In the backyard I noticed wood lice damage to have the same effects on air layers of Wisteria as well as Figs; they started bleeding all over the place, killing all already established roots long (weeks) after the wood lice were gone. Antibiotics had zero effect. A lot of laboratory practice books have bleeding high on the list as potential issue of blackening and dying cultures.

I saw some orange/brown on a cut trunk. That's usually a trigger sign for me. I've seen that color a lot during those experiments. It might be a combination of causes, but I wanted to leave another puzzle piece for people to use in their diagnosis.

 

[0soyoung]

Thanks for the discussion @Wires_Guy_wires . This is brainstorming (though maybe not per the formal rules)!! I am just jumping ahead to reviewing plausibility/testability before every idea is on the board. Vitamin C effects certainly interests me.

I haven't observed anything like you've referred to. On the other hand, I surely have overlooked many things. Only last year did I notice that all that year's layers were necrotic (blackish) in the region of what was the top of the girdle when they collapsed - blackish at the trunk base and and inch or so downward into the roots (despite this, there were nice white, growing, root tips). I didn't notice this before the collapse nor in prior years, but I very well may have overlooked it. Now that I am tuned into it, I've been watching my two big air-layers harvested last Aug/Sep. I haven't seen any hint of it (yet), that is to today; not when the layers were harvested, nor today. They are now leafing out and in the same state as @Johnnyd showed, just today, in his pic (above).

btw, I affected a layer on my one surviving Shindeshojo (layer) last year, but left it in place over the winter. I'll wait until after the first flush has hardened to harvest it. Maybe it will make a difference toward getting some idea about the cause(s) of my problem.

 

[Bonsai Nut]

When you separate the air-layer, do you seal the bottom of the cut with a waterproof cut paste?

 

[Owen Reich]

I didn’t read the whole thread, so if someone else brought this up, consider it seconded. You might consider a thiram, banrot, or other fungicide application to original propagation media. Then additional applications just before winter etc etc until you get over the timeframe they usually crap out at.

It’s possible the new root system is staying too wet. You might also consider a pond basket with a bonsai mix, with a small sphagnum core.

 

[0soyoung]

When you separate the air-layer, do you seal the bottom of the cut with a waterproof cut paste?

When I harvest air layers, I cut the stem well below the girdle, and I do not trim this 'stub' until the first repotting. I don't use any sealants.
IOW, the two layers I have now still have this 2 to 4 inch long 'stub' below the girdle. I simply remove the plastic that was covering the sphagnum and pot the works in a standard garden center plastic pot that I fill with Turface MVP. Usually this is 5 gallon size pot. I screw two diametrically opposed bamboo sticks to the pot and tie the upper parts of the layer to them so the roots won't be moved (analogous to what landscapers do when planting trees).

My one successful layer was the largest I had made until the two I currently have that were harvested Aug/Sep 2018. It was about 3 feet tall with a one inch-ish caliper. This year's layers are close to 4 feet and about 1.25 inch calipers.

My normal habit is to be repotting the layers about now, and trimming off the stub up to the bare wood in the girdle. I did not this with some of last year's layers, yet they crapped out too. I am not repotting and trimming this year's layers (meaning the two layers I potted last Aug/Sep versus last year's = harvested Aug/Sep 2017).

It’s possible the new root system is staying too wet. You might also consider a pond basket with a bonsai mix, with a small sphagnum core

@River's Edge raised this possibility earlier so I did spend some time in the winter picking sphagnum away from the (adventitious) root collar - more so on one than the other. Correspondingly, I kept the MVP level lower with the 'picked' one.
Again, the wad of sphagnum is about fist size and it is set in the upper half of the depth of a 5 gallon plastic nursery pot filled with MVP. Roots grew out radially since last Aug/Sep to the extent that the pot of Turface is fully populated, on the surface anyway. For me, the problem hasn't appeared until after the first leaves are out - we're not quite to that time.


What are the details of what you do / you done, @Johnnyd?

 

[Bonsai Nut]

When I harvest air layers, I cut the stem well below the girdle, and I do not trim this 'stub' until the first repotting. I don't use any sealants.

You might consider trimming the stub and sealing it. To me it looks like your cuttings are getting fungus from the base of the trunk upwards. Normally if the roots rot the tree will die before it goes black like that. I use a latex sealer.

Kyonal has antifungal properties in addition to being waterproof.

 

[0soyoung]

You might consider a thiram, banrot, or other fungicide application to original propagation media.

I learned from the UBC Maple board that Alliete successfully cures a number of fungal pathogens in maples, but it doesn't seem to be available in small quantities and hobbyist prices. At a glance, the two you mention are 'accessible'. Thanks!

 

[0soyoung]

I use a latex sealer.

Rubber cement?
Latex house paint?

And apply this to the cut end of the stub I presume?

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Rubber cement?
Latex house paint?

And apply this to the cut end of the stub I presume?

Sorry, I'm at an airport at the moment and having a hard time typing. I use kyonal.

It is a medicated pruning sealer that is latex-based and waterproof. Clean up the stub so you have a flush or concave cut and then apply the sealant.