Declining Health of Nishiki(?)

Bonsai Nut

Nuttier than your average Nut
Messages
12,420
Reaction score
27,869
Location
Charlotte area, North Carolina
USDA Zone
8a
It looks dry - not just the needles but the soil. How are you managing watering and humidity?

It should be in deep dormancy, so the die is cast. Whether it lives or dies you won't know until Spring. In the meantime, it sounds like you are doing all the right things: (1) keep soil from drying out (2) protect from wind (3) keep out of direct sunlight.
 

CHUCHIN

Mame
Messages
227
Reaction score
3
Location
Maryland
USDA Zone
7
This past August, 2013, I acquired a Nishiki Pine (am unsure of specific variety) from the Midwest Bonsai Show. It was styled with wire and needle plucked prior to my acquisition. It looked healthy, and had light yellowy green needles.

I live in Wisconsin, Zone 5b. The tree was wintered a week or two before Thanksgiving in a house attachment with no wind, but good air circulation, and indirect light. The temperatures in the wintering attachment are 10 degrees F higher than outside, so a normal temperature range would be between 10-45 degrees F.

I am concerned about the health of the tree. The tree looks as pictured below (using two types of lighting to show how it might look). I do not know enough about the Nishiki variety to know what to expect. To me, the needles look a light grey-yellow-green, but my other normal Japanese Black Pines are not doing anything like this. What do you think?

I am extremely sorry for any stress you are experiencing related to this. Base on my experience and what I have seen your tree is already dead. Most of these conifers decline and die long before they start to show it. Think of a christmas tree... No roots, Chainsawed but is still green...Eventually it starts to change until it turns brown. I say keep nurturing it but manage your expectations so that you are not dissapointed.
 

Vance Wood

Lord Mugo
Messages
14,002
Reaction score
16,911
Location
Michigan
USDA Zone
5-6
I am extremely sorry for any stress you are experiencing related to this. Base on my experience and what I have seen your tree is already dead. Most of these conifers decline and die long before they start to show it. Think of a christmas tree... No roots, Chainsawed but is still green...Eventually it starts to change until it turns brown. I say keep nurturing it but manage your expectations so that you are not dissapointed.

If the needles truly look like they are kind of shriveled down the stem the tree is gone.
 

Catalyst05

Sapling
Messages
25
Reaction score
0
As for what soil it's in, it looks like a mix of bentonite clay (hard grey kitty litter?), with haydite, and rock grit. Weirdly, the particle size on top is the largest, and particle size gets smaller towards the bottom, maybe because of breakdown of the clay. It drains very fast.

As for why it's looking on the dry side, the pictures were actually taken after it had been just watered. After watering you could hear the crackle of air, but visually it was slower draining than usual. But really if you put your hand on the soil and try to loosen the top, it's all frozen, a solid brick.

As for maintaining humidity in the wintering area. The area is three sides brick, one side poly sheeting, about the size of a closet. Air gets in from the poly-sheeting side. The humidity outside is probably 20-30%, and if I were to take a guess, not much better in the wintering location. Maybe someone has some suggestions on increasing humidity? This factor would probably be much easier if I had a greenhouse.

I really don't expect much from the tree, I think it's not quite dead but it might be on its way. I'll still give it some TLC to see what it does in Spring. The real stress right now is making sure I don't lose my other trees.

After posting I did a careful check of my other trees and there are some branches that concern me. It looks quite different than the Nishiki, but as seen in the picture, a couple buds have lost color and have turned to a green-grey. The Black Pine pictured is in a 50/50 akadama/river rock mixture. I put this one in a larger box and actually mulched it up to its first branch, in addition to putting it in the wintering area. What do you guys think?
 

Attachments

  • IMG_00231.jpg
    IMG_00231.jpg
    200.3 KB · Views: 43
Last edited:

Brian Van Fleet

Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Messages
13,961
Reaction score
45,897
Location
B’ham, AL
USDA Zone
8A
Photos like that in post 24 are very hard to diagnose from. Even if the primary subject is the needle color, it is important to include a common object in the photo to offer frame of reference to compare color and/or scale, a coke can works well. Solely from the image, the needles look dead.
 

Brian Van Fleet

Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Messages
13,961
Reaction score
45,897
Location
B’ham, AL
USDA Zone
8A
Just as an example, and this may not work...does the color of this black pine look healthy?
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    201.7 KB · Views: 39
Last edited:

Catalyst05

Sapling
Messages
25
Reaction score
0
Photos like that in post 24 are very hard to diagnose from. Even if the primary subject is the needle color, it is important to include a common object in the photo to offer frame of reference to compare color and/or scale, a coke can works well. Solely from the image, the needles look dead.

Someone had mentioned texture of the needles having "dried up," I tried to capture the texture of the needles in the photo. The photo was taken in daylight. I'm surprised you didn't scold me for not having a coke can in my first four pictures of the Nishiki before saying it was dead, otherwise it would have been provided. I figured the surrounding needle mass in the same type of light might be a good indicator of color.
 

Catalyst05

Sapling
Messages
25
Reaction score
0
Just as an example, and this may not work...does the color of this black pine look healthy?

The picture you took, of course, is not in daylight. Without daylight there is no light to reflect color, it looks like most of the light is provided by your camera. If the photo were in pitch black I guess I'd say that the pine didn't exist at all.

Daylight, on the other hand, has a color rendering index of 100, as it is what the whole CRI (color rendering index) system is based upon. If you took a picture out in daylight, like you have in most of the photos in your new e-book, you wouldn't need a coke can. And indeed, I don't see a coke can in your book photos, or in most photos on this forum (except a few for size).
 

Brian Van Fleet

Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Messages
13,961
Reaction score
45,897
Location
B’ham, AL
USDA Zone
8A
The original below gives a frame of reference with the trunk, pot, and stand, and the whole image is washed out, which makes the needles look pale. I guess I was looking for a reason that your tree might look better to you than it does in the pix.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    188.5 KB · Views: 28
Messages
1,309
Reaction score
2,482
Location
Finger Lakes Region, New York
USDA Zone
5
I'm finding this whole thread amusing. Three pages of diagnosis on a tree that is either dead or it isn't. Either way, treat it like it is alive until spring by doing all of the right winter things to it. My wife took a Master Gardener course once and the teacher gave the best gardening advice I've ever heard..."Some times they live and sometimes they die." This is one reason why I have more than one tree.
 
Messages
1,309
Reaction score
2,482
Location
Finger Lakes Region, New York
USDA Zone
5
The original below gives a frame of reference with the trunk, pot, and stand, and the whole image is washed out, which makes the needles look pale. I guess I was looking for a reason that your tree might look better to you than it does in the pix.
Send me the sick looking photo and with a little Photoshop magic I'll have it looking good in no time. Bad photography can kill a tree on a forum in a hurry.
 

Catalyst05

Sapling
Messages
25
Reaction score
0
I'm not sure how a photo taken in daylight gets into a debate over color rendering index and frame of reference with daylight vs. artificial light.

I think what I wanted out of the post was more along the lines of: Hey here's something that looks weird. Have you seen something like this before in your own trees? If you have, what caused it?

It would be helpful because it might give me some idea of causes which I could then remedy, or at least put me in the ballpark to know what's going on, before a molehill becomes a mountain.

Example: hey that looks like a tree that I had, it was exposed to a cold wind, froze for too long, was watered incorrectly, had root rot, had some sort of disease, etc. It lost several several of its branches as a result.
 

Brian Van Fleet

Pretty Fly for a Bonsai Guy
Messages
13,961
Reaction score
45,897
Location
B’ham, AL
USDA Zone
8A
I've shared my thoughts and experience on the matter, and tried to eliminate the photography lighting as a cause for a mis-diagnosis. That's all I got. Hope it works out ok.
 

Catalyst05

Sapling
Messages
25
Reaction score
0
I've shared my thoughts and experience on the matter, and tried to eliminate the photography lighting as a cause for a mis-diagnosis. That's all I got. Hope it works out ok.

I appreciate your paternalism.
 

Poink88

Imperial Masterpiece
Messages
8,968
Reaction score
119
Location
Austin, TX (Zone 8b)
USDA Zone
8b
I'm not sure how a photo taken in daylight gets into a debate over color rendering index and frame of reference with daylight vs. artificial light.

Because it is the most important basis for any advise to be given? If the color is off you should have qualified it properly.

Personally, I agree with everyone's diagnosis BASED on the posted pics.
 

Catalyst05

Sapling
Messages
25
Reaction score
0
Because it is the most important basis for any advise to be given? If the color is off you should have qualified it properly.

Personally, I agree with everyone's diagnosis BASED on the posted pics.

Totally agree, as I said I'll continue to give that one TLC until I know it is definitively dead.

But, I actually posted a picture of a different pine (as indicated above in an earlier post). If the symptoms of the two pines look similar from forum members experiences, it might help me derive a common problem, the wintering area. That's what I was continuing to ask about.
 

Vance Wood

Lord Mugo
Messages
14,002
Reaction score
16,911
Location
Michigan
USDA Zone
5-6
I'm not sure how a photo taken in daylight gets into a debate over color rendering index and frame of reference with daylight vs. artificial light.

I think what I wanted out of the post was more along the lines of: Hey here's something that looks weird. Have you seen something like this before in your own trees? If you have, what caused it?

It would be helpful because it might give me some idea of causes which I could then remedy, or at least put me in the ballpark to know what's going on, before a molehill becomes a mountain.

Example: hey that looks like a tree that I had, it was exposed to a cold wind, froze for too long, was watered incorrectly, had root rot, had some sort of disease, etc. It lost several several of its branches as a result.

Without actually holding the tree in my hand and looking at it with my own eyes any kind of decision is based on visual clues you can make out with the evidence from the photos. I rescaned the photo furnished and enlarged it. If you take a close look at some of the needles you will notice that they are (some of them) sunken in the middle down the middle of the individual needles. I have seen this a number of times and it has always meant a dead tree. The tree is desicated and for all intents and purposes beyond human intervention-----IMHO.

4DdHM3s.jpg


Nothing would make me happier than to be wrong.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom