Trident Maple Air layer fail

[eugenev2]

I agree. Watering frequency also depends how big of an open it is at the top of the air layer wrapping.

So all of mine that i had success with had no openings at all and i based the need to water them on the level of condensation...ie if there where some, we are good, if none, time to water.
But i did have the recent "fun" of trying to remove the little bits of spagnum moss from the roots, i think @leatherback made a video about this not so long ago. So definitely cannot recommend it out of that respect, but it has provided great roots so far.

 

[MaciekA]

Thank you for this.

After a few other responses from others, I think it won’t hurt for me to rescar the callus and pack it up again. It’ll be over a day of it left open to the air though. Do you think there will be any issues?

I also pruned off a lot of branches and trimmed it a bit. The leader is still left on with plenty of leaves though. Wondering if this affects the health of the tree and therefore risk killing it if I try airlayering again?

Thanks

I agree with the others in this thread for these points:

- The part where sugars and auxin from above migrate to the layer cut area is going very well
- The part where the callus should be breathing air and more willing to form roots didn't go as well
- You haven't lost any progress really. None of the accumulated sugar/auxin has escaped -- it is still physically at the cut site and will eventually want to root

and would add this point: You are safe in re-scoring the edge of the callus a tiny bit, adding some more hormone, then re-building a pot around the area (or however you set up your layer site, I like build-a-pot and consider a sealed moss-bag to be too wet), and continuing forward towards your goal of rooting the air layer. You could continue this until fall 2024 if you wanted to. Not unheard of to straddle a winter when air-layering.

 

[dbonsaiw]

Not remotely a professional in taking airlayerings, but out of 10 done so far, all 10 were successful and all was done with spagnum moss. Although all were done on easy to root species such as trident maple, japanese maple and chinese elm...although i'm not sure if the elm counted as it started to push roots out on a branch i accidentally damaged. Personally i think people use spagnum moss incorrectly, this watering every other day should not happen. With all of my layerings, it took 3 to 4 weeks before i had to top up the water and it was mostly because roots have formed by then.

I wanted to share the same sentiment. I've only taking a few layers, all have been in pure sphagnum moss and all were successful (my after-care is wanting, however). I watered the moss at least once a week, and imagine it stayed very wet. Also, one of the JM layers had a fairly large canopy that was vigorous and it took. So not really sure what happened to yours.