White pine back budding

Beginners
1

I have a white pine grafted on to Black pine root stock. It is almost a showable tree
however their are no back buds. The tree is very healthy and has good health
distribution. As the tree is healthy and has a good image, I am stuck at how
to preserve the shape/size but also promote back buds.

Am I right in thinking that I should let the tree run all spring,
re-accumulate a lot of sugars and starches and when the sheaths drop, cut
back the candles? Would this trigger the back buds and also maintain the
size, as well as produce buds at the tip for next year?

Or… if the tree is really healthy and putting out long extensions,
should i pinch the longest candles in half/third to maintain the shape and size? Would
this trigger back budding?

I feel option 1 is best but as i am not an expert I would prefer to use
your knowledge.

THANKS a million guys.

2

Grafted White pines “miyajima white pine” can be treated as a single flush short needle pine, meaning pinching them to maintain the silhouette won’t result in excessively long needles. Pinching tho is a refinement technique, transitioning strength from strong to medium to weak. Allowing the new growth to elongate and harden off will encourage back budding because more water and nutrients will be flowing through the branch and the tree will take advantage of that by producing back buds.

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3

Hope that answered your question, glad to see more people working with JWP they are one of my favorite!

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4

Thanks a million for this reply. As you state letting it harden off and re accumulate its resources and having a good amount of traffic. Should I then cut the candles as the sheaths drop leaving a small amount for new bud formation for next year?

5

WATCH Ryan’s early vidio explanation of pines. WP, Red pines, black pines.
Fletch-- yours is prettier than mine. Needs … some moss .

6

Yep sheaths dropping on JWP is an indication that the new growth has hardened off

7

Thank you Kurt, I can say that after being repotted this year it was properly top dressed haha

8

I’ve been followng Ryans white pine process for the last two summers. Back budding good. Top died…global wsrming…:joy:

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9

MIchaelUK, check out my recent comments on back budding “eastern white pine” (pinus strobus) - Design section on the Forum found in North America. Although not Japanese white pine, I used the JWP technique of pruning off the entire fully hardened shoot on strong branches as part of an experiment with good results. The back buds appeared this spring, not last year when I cut them. They were only little green dots at first but they are growing. I’ll see if they develop into shoots this year. You could try this on one or two shoots and monitor the results.

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