Creating nebari on pine sapplings

[Ply]

I've got some 2-5 year old pine sapplings, and plan to collect a few more. I often read that if you want to create a good nebari starting early on is paramount.

What would be the best way to create a good nebary with these pine sapplings?

 

[Bonsai Nut]

Depends where you are collecting your saplings, and how many you can obtain, but I would simply collect those already showing decent nebari, and skip those with poor nebari. If you have a 25 year-old tree that needed root work, it might be worth it to spend years working on root grafts, etc, however with such young trees it probably isn't worth the labor.

 

[MaciekA]

Delete downfacing roots and radially arrange the remaining ones according to feasibility in the tree and your skillfulness in the practice.

If the material doesn’t lend itself to this, as @Bonsai Nut says, move on to other material (or else suffer through wounding/moss-packing/hormoning and slowing down the material to try to ramify the roots, and accept the steep time cost vs better material. If seedlings are otherwise plentiful this can be a waste of time).

The younger a pine seedling is, the more likely you are able to intervene safely and with good results.

At 5 years, it’ll be tricky. At 5 weeks, you might be doing the taproot seedling cutting method and able to achieve a near perfect result (and should consider field growing pine prebonsai for a living, as this is step one).

I’ve collected my share of wild pine seedlings and IME this is a site-specific challenge. If the site is prone to drought or drainage (pines often compete for these sites) then you will discover a tap root since drought tolerance leans on early root colonization and sources may be deep.

If you do mess with restructuring collected seedling root systems “from scratch”, bottom heat (29C / 85F) is your secret magical superpower.

 

[JEads]

In addition to what has already been said, which I agree with completely, I would say to work the roots often (every year or two.) Cut off offending roots, down roots (unless they can be bent up) crossing roots, etc. then plant and grow hard for a year and repeat. A pine should be able to handle that work in the first 4-5 years of its life fine.
Start with more than you need and if at any time it seems weak, did not recover from the cutting, or is not spitting out roots where you want them, just discard and do not throw good time after bad trees.

 

[kingsville grower]

If you are starting with seedlings(especially conifers)from nature then your first years have been a crap shoot. To me those first few months and up to 24 months is the period to encourage radial roots from the trunk using various techniques. Collecting 2 or 3 yr old pine seedlings seems to be self defeating when there are reems of literature on how to do this from seed

 

[Peace]

If you are starting with seedlings(especially conifers)from nature then your first years have been a crap shoot. To me those first few months and up to 24 months is the period to encourage radial roots from the trunk using various techniques. Collecting 2 or 3 yr old pine seedlings seems to be self defeating when there are reems of literature on how to do this from seed

Greetings, since I struggle to understand how is possible, It would be wonderful to learn the process for making radial roots, I would be satisfied with knowing how to root pine cuttings. please can you help me? even a private message if you don't want to divulge the technique. (I couldn't afford to buy pine trees overseas but I'd like to test myself). Thank you

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

@Peace - you did not fill out your profile, so we don't know where is "overseas" in relation to your location. That said, there are a number of illustrated articles both on BNut and around the web demonstrating the "seedling cutting technique".

Essentially, pines will root if you remove the lower half of a seedling that is less than 10 weeks old. Simply chop off the roots and half the stem. Stick the short top half stem with tuft of juvenile needles in a fine medium for striking cuttings. Keep moist, bottom heat helps but is not mandatory in middle of summer. In a few weeks new roots will have developed.

Pines loose this ability to produce roots from stems usually before 6 months from seed.

Mature pines are extremely difficult, if not impossible to propagate from cuttings. There are a very few exceptions, and these exceptions are still considered difficult and unreliable propagation subjects.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Pines loose this ability to produce roots from stems usually before 6 months from seed.

I've done a year on JBP, JRP and Sylvestris.
But I haven't been very successful at producing radial roots even with young stuff, usually what happened is that one root formed and I was essentially back at square one. Tried a couple different techniques too!
I believe there's still a good selection process needed. Maybe 1 in every 5 went radial.

So now I do root pruning and shallow planting. Sure, the branches start a little higher.. But restricting growth in the first two years by limited root space and pruning makes up for that. Got it to a point where I can say 3/5 are radial and there's way less deaths along the way.

 

[Peace]

@PeacePines loose this ability to produce roots from stems usually before 6 months from seed.

thanks for the informations

Actually I'm in Northern Italy, after a hot fall (29°c/13°c) today we encounter a cold wave (17°c/5°c) so the climate is quite crazy.

After failing with the seedling-cut technique (seen on YT, forums, and other sites) on a bunch of JBP I was quite unhappy.
Now that i've read again that thread, https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/j...s-competition-mark-comstock.31775/post-645212
He says that does 1 cut, then a second one some time after and a third one, now I understand why that semi-hardwood yellowish seedling has that massive amount of roots.

Since i failed even at the beginning with 1 cut, i think trying to root a candle or cutting with that age will be almost impossible for me.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Horticulture of seedlings is more difficult than that of mature trees. There is less room for margins of error. Just keep trying, eventually you will succeed.