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

[Owen Reich]

Also, as in previous photo, try wounding the length of underside of some branches. That was the secondary apex of a bonsai.

 

[TomB]

Found IT! I mean a pic of my shindeshojo's leaves. First thing in spring they are all that delicious coral red with yellow mid-veins.
All three stages in one pic.

View attachment 298823

This is exactly what the leaves on my landscape Shin deshojo look like. It's as if the chorophyll breaks down as the season goes on.

 

[0soyoung]

This is exactly what the leaves on my landscape Shin deshojo look like. It's as if the chorophyll breaks down as the season goes on.

Good to know. So I (and a couple neighbors) don't have some strange local/regional cultivar that is unlike any 'shin deshojo' elsewhere. It is indeed a shin deshojo across 8 time zones!!

 

[0soyoung]

Also, as in previous photo, try wounding the length of underside of some branches. That was the secondary apex of a bonsai.

You're suggesting doing something akin to making a notch above a node to release the bud, right? But in this case, it would be to see if a series of wounds (which reduce auxin) induces necrosis on the underside of an in situ branch.

Great idea!


Now, can you explain why I never thought of that?

 

[ctravisc]

Looks more like he took a thin slice or (even better) a v-shaped groove along the axis of the branch’s underside.

 

[0soyoung]

Looks more like he took a thin slice or (even better) a v-shaped groove along the axis of the branch’s underside.

Oh, I see now. I just didn't look close enough at the pic. At first I thought he meant cutting the girdle on the level instead of across the stem (he did) and then concluded that he was being more clever as a test on the landscape tree that wouldn't require making a layer or removing another branch from my landscape tree.

Once I had the flash of (possible) insight, I was asking myself what would be wrong with a raft or raft-like planting = why was I insistent that it had to be upright? I decided that I would use the horizontal branch layers that I have this way if they or either survives the current test.

I now have that space cadet glow .
It all makes sense. I understand and I feel I am so stupid.
A smart guy that wants to make bonsai would just follow the simple rules.

SIMPLE RULE = always cut make the girdle level and plant the layer in the same position.
Life will be easy and rewarding.


Doh!

 

[Owen Reich]

I would not be so concerned about your level of ignorance. Science is complicated, and the annual rhythms of trees and shrubs are well understood. The 3,8,110 year patterns are not so well understood. Meaning, some species don’t propagate the same every year. They also don’t respond to defoliation the same. Just ask anyone who defoliated a Japanese maple for the national show about 4 years ago. The rhythms of plants that don’t follow a short term calendar can be understood. Taxus push a lot more vegetative growth every 3ish years for example.

 

[Oerc201]

Just came across this and the same blackening happened to my deshojo. The airlayer is ok so far but the rest of the tree died like yours does. I am waiting to see if the airlayer makes it. It started at the top close to where the separation happened. I chopped it further and sealed it past the black part. And it still kept going down until it killed the rest of the tree.

 

[0soyoung]

So, @Oerc201, my air layers were fine except that cambium died (and blackened the bark consequently) around the layer's adventitious roots the following spring. Everything seemed normal until the next spring and never did it have any lasting adverse effects on the mother tree.
I understand you to be describing something very different and likely caused by a pathogen. Commercial growers in my area advise against pruning when it is raining or is expected to be raining in the following 3 or 4 days as this is conducive to a pseudomonas syringae (an air-born bacterium) infection. Of course, it is also possible that you accidentally infected your mother tree with a pathogen from another of your trees if you had not sanitized your cutting tool prior to severing the layer.

 

[Oerc201]

So, @Oerc201, my air layers were fine except that cambium died (and blackened the bark consequently) around the layer's adventitious roots the following spring. Everything seemed normal until the next spring and never did it have any lasting adverse effects on the mother tree.
I understand you to be describing something very different and likely caused by a pathogen. Commercial growers in my area advise against pruning when it is raining or is expected to be raining in the following 3 or 4 days as this is conducive to a pseudomonas syringae (an air-born bacterium) infection. Of course, it is also possible that you accidentally infected your mother tree with a pathogen from another of your trees if you had not sanitized your cutting tool prior to severing the layer.

Yes that is possible. And yeah the blackened bark was the same as the picture you showed, that is why i shared. Defenitely different circumstances

 

[0soyoung]

the blackened bark was the same as the picture you showed, that is why i shared.

Unfortunately, with most maple species, blackened bark is just a consequence of cambium cells having died. So, the indications of why is entirely in the circumstances.

With acer palmatum, in particular, any cut stem will inevitably die back to a node (bud pair). This usually happens over winter and rarely ever progresses farther down the branch than the node immediately below the cut.


I am sorry to hear that you lost your mother tree in the process.

 

[Hack Yeah!]

@PiñonJ and @osoyoung I think you've hit the issue here with pseudomonas syringae. Pinon mentioned it in about post 30. I had similar experience with sango kaku and believe it likely just lives in the mother plant and likely cannot be overcame for layers. Here was another article

Read This If You Grow Japanese Maple

This post is about a common bacterial disease called Pseudomonas syringae, which frequently affects Japanese maples yet is relatively easy to control. It is often misidentified as Verticillium wilt…

crataegus.com

 

[Oerc201]

Unfortunately, with most maple species, blackened bark is just a consequence of cambium cells having died. So, the indications of why is entirely in the circumstances.

With acer palmatum, in particular, any cut stem will inevitably die back to a node (bud pair). This usually happens over winter and rarely ever progresses farther down the branch than the node immediately below the cut.


I am sorry to hear that you lost your mother tree in the process.

Thank you i appreciate your comment

 

[0soyoung]

@PiñonJ and @osoyoung I think you've hit the issue here with pseudomonas syringae. Pinon mentioned it in about post 30. I had similar experience with sango kaku and believe it likely just lives in the mother plant and likely cannot be overcame for layers. Here was another article

Read This If You Grow Japanese Maple

This post is about a common bacterial disease called Pseudomonas syringae, which frequently affects Japanese maples yet is relatively easy to control. It is often misidentified as Verticillium wilt…

crataegus.com

I could not disagree more. My problem has absolutely nothing to do with any pathogen.

It is the consequence of changing the orientation of the branch

It is well known that there is more auxin in the PAT stream on the underside of a branch. This is what causes stems to curve upward (gravitropism). The increased auxin level makes the cells of new growth elongate more on the underside than those on top.

Auxin the PAT flow also signals that there is life above. Its absence causes cambium cells to die. In the process they release ethylene and jamonate signaling to other living cells to also close off the phloem and xylem in the area (i.e., compartmentalize the damage). This happens at the end of a branch when we prune it, for example. It doesn't happen instantaneously because auxin in the phloem sap can be off-loaded by daughter cells and placed into the PAT stream. Phloem sap can go up or down, but the PAT stream signaling 'life above' only goes one way, toward the roots.

It is also well known that phloem pressure declines during winter dormancy.

My layers of horizontal shin deshojo branches stayed alive the season they were harvested because there is a phloem pressure that is adequate to maintain the elevated auxin flow to the PAT in the area of the adventitious roots that were at the underside of the branch. Over winter the phloem pressure is inadequate and the auxin level in the PAT stream drops below the threshold to be interpreted as a CODIT command. Other varieties/species work similarly but have differing phloem pressures and auxin thresholds - hence differing reactions. I've documented this kind of thing also happening with a.p. 'Higasayama' but so quickly that it makes air-layering 'impossible'. I've had similar reactions (to Higasayama) with layers left on a.p. 'Aka Shitatsusawa' and a.p. 'Okushimo'. It would not surprise me that 'Sangu Kaku' and maybe other a.p. varieties have similat 'issues'.

The bottom line to my shin deshojo problem is:

keep horizontal stems horizontal and this problem doesn't arise

.
Or, only layer a vertical stem for a vertically oriented planting.


The reverse, lowering a vertical branch to horizontal would create the excess auxin condition that causes adventitious roots to grow, if the underside of the stem is kept damp. This indeed commonly happens with many species of both gymnosperms and angiosperms.