What to do with Low Growth on JBP

[AndyJ]

On pines? It’s THE most important thing to have successful pines. Think about it for a second. I live in the Southeast, and our native pines, the loblolly, grow in tall stands. They’re great for making telephone poles. 60 feet tall, no low branches, and just tufts of foliage at the top.

Now, ask yourself... how did they get this way? They grow tall to catch the sun. Each one is trying to out-compete it’s neighbor. Where’s the sun? Straight up. As they grow UP, the high foliage of themselves and the neighboring trees shades out the lower branches. No sun, and the low branches can’t make sugars. The low branches die off, and fall off.

In a forest situation, the lack of low branches is normal. But, for bonsai, that’s not what we want, is it?

Consider a lone loblolly pine growing in a field by itself. In this situation, sun does strike the low branches, and they survive. The tree grows to be what we call a “formal upright”. A good place to see such trees is in a cemetery. Or perhaps a golf course.

It sounds blindingly obvious when you put it like that!! I need to rethink the layout of my growbed ......

Thanks @Adair M

 

[DirkvanDreven]

The Eisenhower tree for instance.

I saw it on TV last week, for 4 days, in the fall instead of the spring. After bonsai the best pastime!

 

[Beanwagon]

Here is the picture of Telperion Farm’s JBP grow out bed:

View attachment 340347

As you can see, they pruned the bottom branches short while letting the sacrifice branches grow up to 15 feet!

I don’t know if they decandled, but they certainly kept the low branches pruned while the lower trunks were thickening. It doesn’t appear they did any wiring while they were growing them.

Jim Grebel grew a lot of Atlas Cedars in the ground, and he used both sacrifice branches and wiring to develop his trees while they were in the ground fattening up.

If you look at Eric Schader’s thread “a few pine seeds 6 years later”, you will see examples off JBP he grew in colanders he grew using sacrifice branches and wire.

When training jbp's in this manner how often if at all are the roots worked on?

Would you let grow for 10-20 years with little to no root work,

or would you dig up and work the roots everytime you select a new leader/trunk chop

 

[Dav4]

When training jbp's in this manner how often if at all are the roots worked on?

Would you let grow for 10-20 years with little to no root work,

or would you dig up and work the roots everytime you select a new leader/trunk chop

Those trees were initially grown in pots for several years to develop the beginnings of a good root base. Most of them were then planted out in root bags. I can't say how long they stay in the ground between root work, but I suspect they were periodically lifted, root pruned, then replanted in the bags. I have 2 trees from Telperion that I have re-potted and their roots were in pretty good shape in my opinion for stock grown in the ground.

 

[Beanwagon]

Those trees were initially grown in pots for several years to develop the beginnings of a good root base. Most of them were then planted out in root bags. I can't say how long they stay in the ground between root work, but I suspect they were periodically lifted, root pruned, then replanted in the bags. I have 2 trees from Telperion that I have re-potted and their roots were in pretty good shape in my opinion for stock grown in the ground.

Cheers!

 

[MaciekA]

In an interview Chris and Gary said they would usually max out at 3 years before root escape was bad enough to necessitate a lift n' prune.

Looking through and digging up the material left at the site after the wildfires, I'm pretty certain they weren't always (or even perhaps usually) able to keep up with this schedule, as there were plenty of leg-sized roots bursting out of fabric pots all over the field, requiring a sawzall for extraction.

My takeway was that field growing is a lot of work if you aren't 110% on top of it. For this reason, I think raised beds make a lot more sense than laying down weed blocker on straight Oregon earth. Telperion had some raised beds for maples and such, but none of the conifers were planted that way. If you look at field growing operations of pines in Takamatsu, there is farm after farm using tall pumice mounds flanked by trenches. I'm guessing that's more manageable for them.

 

[Darth Masiah]

here's some great examples by Jonas. his black pine development posts are excellent.

Bonsai Development Series #2: maintaining low branches on young pines - Bonsai Tonight

Maintaining low branches on young pines. Today's tip can apply to a number of varieties, but is particularly useful when developing pines from scratch.

bonsaitonight.com

Bonsai Development Series #6: Sacrifice branch basics - Bonsai Tonight

Growing material for bonsai often involves the use of sacrifice branches. This post features the basics related to their use.

bonsaitonight.com