Try it. I think it’s only the previous year’s growth falls off, but I’m not sure how many seasons the needles will last for. I have one smaller seedling that seems to have all its needles it was born with still on main trunk. I will needle prune this one hard in the hope it sets dormant buds in trunk. In the past I’ve tried to collect a few more mature small trees with 1-1/2 - 2” trunks, because I noticed these trees had some adventitious budding on the trunk, and seemed to be a perfect candidate for bonsai. However, they all had big taproot issues and none survived. So adventitious backbudding is possible, I’m just not sure what’s the best way to stimulate it. It is a fire resistant tree at maturity, similar to Pond Pine or slash Pine, so perhaps bark damage/ layer removal may or may not also help stimulate dormant buds.