I came across this recent video. The guy does mekiri work ( JBP candle pruning) on a young JWP. The tree reacts as MFP. Interesting. Does anyone have similar experience? I guess this is related with the age of the tree and environmental factors such as temperatur etc.
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My guess would be that these new buds are just the trees reaction to losing its new growth and that they won’t actually expend into foliar mass this year, or if some expand it would be minimal. That being said I’m sure as you mentioned that age is a factor. I dont believe this could be reliable year after year.
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I agree with Fletch. It would be important to know if those buds opened up and produced buds for next year. If they don’t I would say the experiment would be a failure with nothing gained since the new shoots would be in the same location on the branch whether the buds open in the cut season or next year. They might get shorter internodes in the process but there are really too many unknowns. The real success would be getting buds further back BEHIND the cut site that grow into viable productive needles.
I did have some success with my pinus strobus (see "Eastern White Pine - Design). Basically I followed Ryan’s approach for long needle single flush pines in development. Fertilized heavy and did NOT pinch candles. Then I diverged from Ryan’s approach, instead of waiting for back budding to occur, I cut off that year’s shoot leaving 2-3 bundles of needles. No buds appeared that year but they did come the next year at the cut site and more importantly further back on the branches. Most cut sites produced one or more buds. A few didn’t produce any. So it was a mixed result but overall I got better back budding than I have ever achieved before. The jury is still out in terms of the long term health and viability of these new shoots.
Ryan’s says, if I am putting it right, that is it more likely and less risky to let the branch grow strong at the tip. Wait for back buds. Develop those new shoots into the basis for a beautiful branch, then cut off the coarse terminal. I think Ryan’s approach (Plan A) is the better way. But if I find if I don’t get the results, I can try plan B or be more patient with plan A.
Thinking further about the video EGIstanbul referred to. I think the maker did achieve a success if the buds continued to grow into viable needle count because from one shoot, he/she got two possibly doubling ramification at the branch tips. Taken from there, over time, it could accelerate ramification. But again more testing would have to confirm it’s reliability and viability.