There was some talk in July last year at my club that in South East Queensland people’s black pines had all flipped out and started pushing candles early. It’s now coming up to mid Summer, which is when the common knowledge states it’s time to decandle, but jeez the growth looks like it’s well past that point
The decandling is based on timing, not the state of growth of the candles. In the northern hemisphere the time to decandle is on or about June 1st. This gives the second flush time to mature by fall. So, in the southern hemisphere the time would be whatever is equivalent to June 1st in the northern hemisphere.
I agree with Roger that it is more about timing than the state of growth. However, I believe the timing has to do with how long it will be before growth terminates in the fall. Here is a link to a blog post by Jonas Dupuich where he discusses the timing in terms of the climate using some USA examples - When to decandle - Bonsai Tonight. These will obviously be flipped by 6 months in the southern hemisphere. Roger and I are both in the Spokane, WA area which is as far north as Seattle which impacts the daylight length, but is generally quite a bit warmer than Seattle during the summer which is why he stated June 1st.
