bwaynef
Omono
Rather that try to take another picture, I made a drawing:
View attachment 245924
Starting from the top, that’s the “before” picture of the shoot, back in January. I want to shorten the internode. Normally, the new shoots would begin at the bud on the right.
The second picture shows “normal” needle pulling that’s done on the strong sections of the tree to weaken it. We”re not going to do that technique on this shoot. It would weaken it, but it wouldn’t shorten it, which is our goal.
The third picture shows how it looks after the “Special” needle pulling technique. The little short lines depict the sheaths of the needle pairs left behind when the needles are pulled. The difference is the needles are kept closer to the trunk.
The forth picture just shows where I will eventually make the “decandling” cut. I will cut not just the new growth, but also cut back to remove the portion of the stem where I pulled needles.
The last picture shows how the shoot looks today, and where I will be making the decandling cut. The bud at the end of the shoot has grown out and is making new needles. I will cut the new growth and part of the old growth off when I decandle in a month or so. This will force “needle” buds to appear between the needles of the ones I kept.
That cleared up what you did, though even after reading the new post, I'm still not able to determine which needles were plucked above.
(Ir)Regardless, What's the benefit over NOT needle-plucking at all? Seems like more strength in the backbudding response would be there with the additional needles remaining up until the time when you make the "special" cut.
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