Anyone else see tridents bud out red?

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I have several trident maples leafing out right now. Most are leafing out green, but some are leafing out red. I'm letting them all bud out in full sun. Anyone ever see this happen with your trident?
 

Shibui

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Nearly all our tridents start out with red new leaves that gradually fade to green. Occasionally I get a seedling that has green leaves from the start so it must be some genetic variation.
Incidentally, the green leaved ones I have had never ramified as well as the red leaf variety, no matter how hard I tried and techniques employed. Also quite weak lower branches and much stronger at the apex.
Of the few green leaf ones I have had, most produced exceptional nebari without any help from me. At one stage I considered propagating the green leaf type as rootstocks for grafting the red leaf onto in an attempt to combine the best of both but never got around to it.
Now don't keep green leaf type because of the poor ramification.
 

Smoke

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There is no such thing as a red leaf variety and a green leaf variety. The red comes from the fact that the leaf is not yet producing chlorophyll. The red is the dominate color in any leaf on most deciduous trees. In the fall the red comes back when the days get shorter and the leaf no longer needs to produce the chlorophyll. This spring has been rather cool and long and the leaves coming out redder and staying red longer is just a byproduct of the cooler weather. Trust me they all turn green soon.

The red is caused from the anthocyanins and is blotted out by the green chlorophyll when the leaf starts making food. The true color of the leaf would be shades of red and orange if the chlorophyll wasn't so powerful. The good news, we get the beautiful red and orange twice a year.

Even the green is starting to creep into my Oshio Beni. It will be green by May. The branch hanging in the upper right is a branch from a Bloodgood yard tree.

037.JPG
 

Shibui

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There is no such thing as a red leaf variety and a green leaf variety.
Maybe you have not come across this but that does not mean it does not exist. I agree that the colour in the 'red' type is not permanent. It exists only in the first week or so after the leaf opens and then becomes green but there are some individual tridents where the new leaf opens absolutely green, right from the bud. This is the type I refer to as 'green' variety. In summer there is almost no difference between the 2 types. Maybe variety is the wrong term? Might be better to describe them as 'differently coloured individuals while leaves open'?
 

Michael P

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In my three tree trident group planting, two have red leaves in early spring and one has green, so it cannot be due to different light conditions. Leaves turn green on all three by mid spring. Fall color is different too, with the red spring trees being orange, and the green spring tree being yellow. These trees were all seedlings, so have different genetics.
 

Smoke

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It exists only in the first week or so after the leaf opens and then becomes green but there are some individual tridents where the new leaf opens absolutely green, right from the bud. This is the type I refer to as 'green' variety. In summer there is almost no difference between the 2 types. Maybe variety is the wrong term? Might be better to describe them as 'differently colored individuals while leaves open'?
I like the way you make my argument in your own post. Classic! You call it whatever you wish but the fact remains there are not red leafed tridents....period.
 

Shinjuku

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There is no such thing as a red leaf variety and a green leaf variety. The red comes from the fact that the leaf is not yet producing chlorophyll. The red is the dominate color in any leaf on most deciduous trees. In the fall the red comes back when the days get shorter and the leaf no longer needs to produce the chlorophyll. This spring has been rather cool and long and the leaves coming out redder and staying red longer is just a byproduct of the cooler weather. Trust me they all turn green soon.

Smoke is correct. Here’s a picture of my recently chopped trident maple. It’s a bad picture of the tree but a good picture of the young, red leaves. On all my tridents, the leaves start off as some shade of red and then turn green quickly as the leaves start making chlorophyll.
2508B0D7-3F98-468D-BBCE-17650C3D5168.jpeg

I think Smoke and Shibui are saying the same thing.
 

Michael P

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[QUOTE="Shinjuku, post: 637390, member: 24361" I think Smoke and Shibui are saying the same thing.[/QUOTE]

No, they are not. Many trident maples (perhaps most) grow red leaves that turn green. Some trident maples (perhaps few) grow green leaves that stay green. This is what Shibui and I observe. No one said anything about a trident maple that remains red though the entire growing season in the same way some Japanese maple cultivars do. This kind of minor genetic variabiliiy occurs in most species that are propagated sexually (from seed) instead of being cloned (cuttings, air layers, etc.).
 
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I guess a follow up question would be do they always look a little wilty when they first bud out? I've got one looking a bit wan and then on my itger the lower trunks have leafed out red and the higher trunks are at least several days behind. I think maybe I'm getting weirded out that everyone else's tridents locally look way farther along than mine.

Wilty look:
IMG_20190331_162211.jpg

Red leaves
IMG_20190331_162205.jpg
 

Smoke

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It's just variability with in the material.

Here is one of my tridents that is about fourty years old. It was used by Ian Price as a mother tree for taking cuttings. I purchased it from him and completely cut the tree up to a bare trunk and built new branches. I have one on this tree that is grafted. The entire tree is red and the grafted one comes out green. It will be all green and virtually impossible to know which branch is grafted in a week.

When I got it.
001.JPG

When I cut it up.
009.JPG

What it looks like today budding.
DSC_0027.JPG

The grafted branch
DSC_0028.JPG

Now there are two more grafted branches on this tree that did not come out green.
Here is a shot from last year and the tree is green but the grafted branch is red. You never know what they are going to do. That's part of the fun....enjoy it!!
033.JPG
 
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It's just variability with in the material.

Here is one of my tridents that is about fourty years old. It was used by Ian Price as a mother tree for taking cuttings. I purchased it from him and completely cut the tree up to a bare trunk and built new branches. I have one on this tree that is grafted. The entire tree is red and the grafted one comes out green. It will be all green and virtually impossible to know which branch is grafted in a week.

When I got it.
View attachment 234875

When I cut it up.
View attachment 234876

What it looks like today budding.
View attachment 234878

The grafted branch
View attachment 234879

Now there are two more grafted branches on this tree that did not come out green.
Here is a shot from last year and the tree is green but the grafted branch is red. You never know what they are going to do. That's part of the fun....enjoy it!!
View attachment 234877

Thanks for both the detailed replies, very helpful!
 

rockm

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If you watch, you will see the same new red bud/foliage on just about every tree in the woods. Early red leaves are pretty common on trees.
 

Smoke

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Here are two tridents sitting next to each other on the bench. The one on the right has very reddish leaves while the one on the left has very green leaves. Just more variability.

DSC_0033.JPG
 
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