Dirk Hoorelbeke 6y JBP entry

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Next step is waiting a month and doing a second cutting on half of them. Might be late to do it a third time but might be a thing to do next spring for the ones that are less optimal. As advised a small sample of seedlings will be just cut back short several times.

 

[RobertB]

very meticulous.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Waited a bit longer than anticipated until they really took off.
The cuttings that i put in regular pots performed slightly better than the ones in the "big box". Due to the higher temps and easier drainage i think they became dry once to often or long. Since i augmented my water regime the picked up quite OK.

Most of the seedling cuttings had 2 up to 4 roots. 5 or more had 5 or 6.

I've cut all of the roots for the biggest part of the batch, moving them to pots. Some i left long and did cut at the place where roots emerged. Others where cut shorter.

The mikawa jbp are slightly more vigorous and less dropouts.
Since my pots where full and i had enough remaining ones i did cut roots short on some. 1 or 2 mm remained.


The sample with cut roots is between the pots and the blue tag. From there on there are only single cut cuttings.

"End" result. Mikawa with hot pink labels.

 

[Ruben Bouwmeester]

Wow, have you alway's keept them in your greenhouse? and are going to keep them there? really nice. i follow

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Yes greenhouse at 50 degrees Max and bottom heat. The bigger ones are floppy already, might be a fast reduction of the quantity.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

The single cut seedlings perform better than the double seedling cuttings on the growth parameter.
The biggest single cut seedling in pot is 10 cm (4 inches).

The smallest of that group is around 5cm (2inches).

They have roots for sure.

The biggest in the big growbox in the greenhouse is a bit larger (12 cm / 4,7 inches). Most are 6 cm and start to grow big needles now.


The second cut seedlings struggled since they were made in hot temps and in a free draining mix. Next time i'll give them a heavier and damper mix. Most of them survived but turned brownish purple and stopped growing ending at 2cm (3/4 inch). I hope they have some kind of root spread to compensate for that.


Repotting season will make clear if the struggle was worth it.

 

[RobertB]

nice pond baskets and progress.

 

[Ruben Bouwmeester]

Nice work!! Some off mine have turned purple/brown. I thought i was the only one.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

It's like in spring, when frozen solid, they do the same. No water / roots i guess. It's amazing how long they stay green even if they don't have roots. It takes 4 to 6 weeks to get brown.

 

[Fonz]

Any idea what's causing this? A bunch of mine are starting to turn purple/brown too, and they have roots coming out of the bottom of their containers...

 

[cmeg1]

Awesome documentation! Thanks

 

[Bonsai901]

Very nice progression

 

[Ruben Bouwmeester]

I thought it had something to do with the intensity of light. But then they would also do that in a greenhouse.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

In winter a lot of conifers get a purple 'shine'. They still produce food but can't transport it to the roots. When you keep them above freezing they don't do that. A bit the same with maples in fall. Warm and sunny and dry during the day and cold at night make fantastic colours. I don't know what causes it in summer but the few colder nights might have triggered them to winter mode.

 

[markyscott]

Excellent work, Dirk. Great pictures and documentation.

A

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

The 2 times cuttings are small but have 5 or more roots. The batch in the greenhouse with bottom heat did have a hard time in summer but have better roots. The others outside where happiest but a bit less roots. I made a combo of pond baskets and ordinary pots large and small. Some with akadama pumice lava. Others with perlite and peat. Had to use hard water last year so that might have had a negative impact.

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Time for an update again. Went inactive for a while...
left at this point:

Total 90: Top row are planted in pond basket and peat / perlite. I've put one in the middle on the ground to compare the size.

20 in perlite / peat in pond baskets. They are large (25 to 40cm), dark green with enough backbudding most of the time.

18 left in Boon mix in the same pond baskets. They had a hard time this summer. The ground medium flushed away a bit, pines were planted to high and wiggle in the wind, ... even the ones that were deep enough and / or planted in big containers have a dull / yellow colour and are not big (10 to 20 cm) nor happy.


4 were planted in peat / perlite but in smaller pots and are smaller (10 to 20 cm) but nice and green.

The 48 pines with non-optimal roots were cut for the third time and planted in perlite / peat and in smaller pots.

Here an example of a 4 year older pine: bigger but not extremely happy.

The difference in colour is obvious:

This is one of the pines with 3 times cutting

 

[Fonz]

Awesome! When did you put them in the pond baskets?

 

[cmeg1]

NICE!

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

Awesome! When did you put them in the pond baskets?

This spring, a year after germination.