Colorado Blue Spruce

Colorado

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Oops... apparently I typed inside the quoted text. Here’s what I meant to say:

There are many posts on the benefits of doing the HBR process.

In short, doing it the way you describe is a bad way to transition to all inorganic bonsai soil. Assuming the goal is to transition to inorganic soil, doing the HBR method is the most successful.

You see, the openness of the inorganic soil is so different than the compactness of the old rootball, roots don’t grow into the inorganic soil. Water passes through the inorganic soil very quickly. Water that lands on the old rootball runs over to the inorganic soil, and down and out before absorbing into the old soil. Meanwhile, the old soil is where the roots are. They take the water out of the ok’d rootball. What happens over time is the old rootball dries out in the center, and even though the tree might get watered daily, the tree doesn’t get enough water.

Boon invented the HBR method to force roots into the new inorganic soil. By doing the HBR on one side, they would be in the new soil. They would get wet when the tree was watered. Meanwhile, the old roots sustains the tree until the HBR roots start growing into the new medium.

After a year, HBR the other side.

Prior to doing the HBR, Boon found that roots just didn’t grow into the inorganic soil. Others had similar experiences. And they would say that Boon mix (inorganic soil) didn’t work. The HBR process changed all that. Once trees find themselves in all inorganic soil, they can thrive in pots indefinitely.

I have a a tremendous amount of respect for your work, but I have not observed these results. I find that the roots grow into the bonsai substrate very well and the old rootball remains fine. I haven’t allowed my trees to dry out enough to find out what happens if you let the old nursery soil dry up, and I agree that would not be an ideal scenario, although no worse than if it dried up after doing a half bare root.

Ryan Neil does not advocate the half bare root method. He has mentioned as much in his videos. His method is more in line with what I’ve described above, although I do not claim to be perfectly summarizing his technique by any means.

I have no doubt that the HBR method works, as evidenced by your work and of course Boon’s. But to me it does not make logical sense to be the best technique. That is why I subscribe to a different technique (or at least, my best understanding of it).
 

Adair M

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Whatever works for you. The HBR method is a Boon technique.

Other guys who studied in Japan also don’t use the HBR method, and they don’t do it in Japan. That’s because they don’t use the kind of nursery soil the commercial nurseries use. They already use inorganic soil. We in the US have to transition the soil.

Boon found it was the best way to make the tree make the transition.
 
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