I have an Austrian Black Pine (Pinus Nigra), which I decandled in June (first week). The tree is now pushing a full second flush. I noted in Ryan’s Nigra video, that the tree will push a 2nd flush of buds, which will elongate next season only.
Anyone else experience this?
I thought maybe the tree is super vigorous, but I reached out to the collector from whom I have the tree, and he said he sees Austrian Black Pines pushing a 2nd flush regularly. I assume this might be a subspecies?
Hey Bandi,
My Austrian Black Pine also pushed a second flush after decandling. I was attempting to push back budding, and I got 4-5 buds at all decandled sites and no back buds. They have since pushed into nice healthy shorter needles. Seems to be acting more like a multi-flush.
I would like to know more about this as well.
I posted a question to Ryan in this week’s QA. I’ll follow up once i have an update tomorrow or on Tuesday.
My notes indicate that Ryan stated that Austrian Black Pine behave a little like a multiflush, single flush short needle, or long needle single flush depending upon the state of development, ferritization, and stored energy. This what the stream dated 12 May 2020. I think I have seen a couple of articles by folks who seem to say similar things to Ryan on many subjects that that P. nigra can be treated like a true multiflush every 2-3 years if properly built up. I have gotten some true multiflush growth on one of mine in development in the past.
I missed those nuances that it could act like all of those depending on the “state of.” I thought he was saying that Nigra has characteristics of all of those, but I didn’t catch that it depended on the vigor and timing. Thanks for clarifying. I look forward to continued learning
about Nigra. I have one that needs a lot of development for sure.@MartyWeiser: as I recall he mentioned nigras being an outlier multiflush, capable of pushing out a 2nd set of buds after decandling (along with backbudding), which would not flush in the current year. You would have to wait for next year for the buds to push candles.
However seeing a full 2nd flush, just like on JBP this year surprised me a lot.
As an additional note, I reached out to the seller (he collects a lot of Nigras in Poland) and he mentioned that he has a lot of Nigras AND Sylvestris that regularly push a 2nd flush…must be something in the Polish waters…
You can find a comment on the 2nd flush from Ryan in the 68th QA (min 36:19): https://live.bonsaimirai.com/library/video/forum-qa-68
In short:
For the sake of progress here’s a new picture taken 2 days ago. The needles be elongating like crazy - this tree is super vigorous.
Just in case anyone in Europe is interested, the tree is from JackRostBonsai. Jacek (the owner) has some of the best conifer yamadori collection I have seen in Europe. Also he is an amazing guy 
Check him out
Here is a picture of one of the branches on my grafted Austrian Black Pine. I think it is a cultivar since the needles are only 5 cm long and curved and that is without any work to reduce needle length. I cut all of the strong and medium shoots back to <10 needle pairs on 10 June 2020 and then did a styling on 8 July 2020 where I removed about 2/3 of the lower branches and a whorl above what will be the new apex. As you can see I have both buds pushing from the cut site this year and buds forming at the base of this year’s growth. Most of the cut sites are like this although there are a couple with only buds at the base of this year’s growth. I did not see many back buds, but there are a few.
I too have decandled my nigra this year for the first time.
And I can report the same thing.
I have back budding and already a full second flush.
The problem is as well that the older needles got longer too.
I am in Germany… northern part of it.
@svencux that’s a nice nigra. When did you decandle? I did it a month earlier than Ryan on the stream. Might be tied to time?
I decandled in the beginning of June.
I did the same. First week of June
I decandled in June as well. No back budding (all tip buds. Was hoping for interior buds), but FULL second flush (Whorl of 3-5) that is starting to harden off now. Buds forming in the middle of each new growth. I’m not going to selectively reduce until next year as I want strength to stay high. Thoughts?
@Uremovich I have a 2nd black pine. I didn’t decandle it, but I did pinch it. At the pinch site I have had buds develop between the needles for the past 2 months. They are huge. Backbuds have only just started to show up a week ago.
So perhaps our subspecies needs to be pinched instead of decandled to force backbudding? I will watch into the spring on what happens. Fun excersize this Austrian pine!
As I recall Ryan saying that decandling does not trigger back budding. Foliar mass and heavy fertilization will produce back budding. The tree will give you back budding if it has a “big bank account”. Enough to “sustain and add”
Anyone correct me if I’m wrong.
@MtBakerBonsai that is true for single flush pines (scots, mugo). But Nigras act a bit differently. My older nigra when I decandle it, pushes backbuds all around the branches. It looks like measels :))
When I don’t decandle the tree just pushes all energy into the new candles.
hi there,
here is an update of my nigra.
I had decandled it last summer.
Shoot selection this spring, no fertilizer this year so far.
The tree produced strong growth long candles.
So what are the next steps this year??
I was watched Ryans nigra videos a few times and if I understood correctly no
work till the trees drops it’s third year needles.
So this year I will treat it a like long needle single flush pine?
So i just shorten the candles that are too long in the areas were I do not need any more length?
Maybe someone can clarify the next steps.
Thanks.
