Late back-budding on JBP, what can I expect?

[souvik1811]

Hello Gurus,

I have a lot of very young buds on my JBP - including needle buds and what I think are adventitious buds. I am wondering what to expect in the months to come?
- Will they mature this year? I guess it is too late?
- Will they grow a candle at all next spring? For now, it is only some green spots or very young needles.
- Would these new buds just die out? I think I read somewhere that some tiny buds may be too weak to be viable.
- I intend to keep the tree small, not expecting anything show-worthy. I was hoping to grow one of the new shoots as a sacrificial branch and start decandling the others from next year. Would that be advisable?
- Are the tiny green bumps at all adv. buds? Or is it something else?

Here is some context:

This is my second ever JBP (The first one is in this thread, I will update soon). It's barely 6 inches tall right now with two side branches, but an interesting enough curve on the tiny trunk. There used to be a longer apical branch on the top, and my initial idea was to grow that as the sacrificial branch.

But lately it has been very cloudy since several months. And my usual 5 hours of direct sunlight is now reduced to 1 or 2. So, I decided to supplement my conifers (guilty pleasures - conifers usually don't do well where I live, except araucarias and lemon cypresses) with an additional 6500K LED flood light, and at least my Junipers seem to love it. Unfortunately, the light was a little too close to the top of this pine, and the needles got burnt and turned brown. So finally I chopped the top off leaving a few pairs of needles.

Thereafter, the Pine has decided to push out several green bumps that look like buds from the bare wood on the trunk. This is in addition to some more tiny Needle buds that I already had growing on the top. I don't know if these buds will survive given that it is already mid-September. I would really love to keep them for the future. Could anyone please shed some light on how these might behave in the months to come?

For reference, our winters are very mild, with minimums of only about 12-15 degrees Celsius for about 2 months, and Spring starts early around February. I have no precedent either and I might be one of the very few - if not the only one - trying JBPs in this area. It is potted in Akadama + Pumice + Lava rock with some original garden soil at the center, which I plan to replace with inorganic soil during the second repot. I fertilize weekly with liquid 20:20:20 NPK and monthly with Seaweed extract and water soluble EDTA Chelated micronutrients. The tree also has white root tips poking out of the bottom of the colander-like container it is planted in, so roots seem healthy.

The first 3 pics show the trunk from 3 sides. The last two are closeups of the needle buds and what I think are adventitious buds.

Thanks a lot in advance!

 

[Dav4]

The buds pushing from the needles just below the chop already have needles elongating and will continue to do so as long as conditions allow for it, meaning warm temperatures and lots of sun. They'll set buds for next year's growth once they're done elongating. You also have adventitious buds popping from the trunk below the wired branch. I suspect they'll have a few needles on them by the time your growing season ends. If not, they will likely push next spring.

 

[souvik1811]

The buds pushing from the needles just below the chop already have needles elongating and will continue to do so as long as conditions allow for it, meaning warm temperatures and lots of sun. They'll set buds for next year's growth once they're done elongating. You also have adventitious buds popping from the trunk below the wired branch. I suspect they'll have a few needles on them by the time your growing season ends. If not, they will likely push next spring.

Thanks a lot for the response.

 

[Shibui]

Those are definitely adventitious buds on the trunk. All those buds should continue to develop, especially in your warm climate. Even if they don't get far this season they should take off in Spring but, I suspect your pines will grow all year round.
I find it's important to suppress upper growth to encourage lower adventitious buds. Strong growing shoots above seem to take all the resources and smaller, lower buds slowly die off. You've already pruned this pine fairly hard so that should be enough to give all those shoots a good chance.

 

[souvik1811]

Those are definitely adventitious buds on the trunk. All those buds should continue to develop, especially in your warm climate. Even if they don't get far this season they should take off in Spring but, I suspect your pines will grow all year round.
I find it's important to suppress upper growth to encourage lower adventitious buds. Strong growing shoots above seem to take all the resources and smaller, lower buds slowly die off. You've already pruned this pine fairly hard so that should be enough to give all those shoots a good chance.

Thanks a lot.

I am a bit scared that the JBPs will gradually get weaker if they keep growing year-round and do not get a proper winter dormancy.

For now, I have the supplemental floodlight ON for 16 hours a day, around 2 feet above the trees. I was planning to gradually reduce the light by around ~1 hours per week starting October, so that by end of November I am down to 8 hours. And then 4-6 hours in Dec and Jan. I also plan to space out the fertilization from weekly to biweekly and then monthly. Hopefully that would induce some level of dormancy. And then I would start heavy feeding again from February once the temperature starts to increase again (albeit marginally), till some weeks before decandling.

Is this a good strategy worth pursuing?