MaciekA
Shohin
Keep the early-forming buds for now.
Allow them to grow out as shoots in spring, let them blast out as shoots, then review what you want to do with them any time after summer solstice. You could vary your strategy between different individuals to see what the response is. Way up in the sacrificial tips, I have found that there's a wide range of preserved leaf mass that is acceptable to the tree before it starts to really lose strength in the lower buds. And keep in mind you have several seasons before the begins to close/narrow on budding likelihood at the base, especially if you have set bends very low into the trunks (shohin-style) as you have here. In my experience, that future-shohin region remains bud-productive even if you have a ton of needle mass way up above so long as 1) it's way up above and 2) not shading that future-shohin area.
The longer you keep those blasted out shoots past solstice, the more sugars they'll contribute back to the rest of the tree, including the tiny bits at the base (+roots), and this can be worth it when you're at this early stage and building lower caliper, and when you haven't really lost any ability to bud at the base.
Any time between July and December, you could reduce the sacrificial top down to 1 or 2 leading shoot(s). Some growers solo that all down to one "super shoot", in some cases selecting the one in the very center (for various reasons. Personally, when I've tried the solo-sacrificial-super-shoot strategy, I've selected the central one so that I can sit JBPs next to one another and keep a slim/narrow footprint -- short on space!).
Other growers keep one or two and maybe even allow some sub-branching to occur up there. At Hagedorn's garden, I've chopped away some sacrificial tops, with sub-branching, whose needle mass would easily be more than the needle mass of all the seedlings in your pictures above combined. Again, the pattern seems to be that you can have a lotta sacrificial growth as long as it's way up there and not shading out anything below.
edit: Here's a picture I took back on May 26th of some chopped off sacrificial tops of JBPs at Hagedorn's: These are pretty massive. Keep this in mind when you're feeling an urgency to inhibit apical dominance.
Most growers later "poodle" (needle strip) the entire sacrificial line all the way from the lowest keep-growth right up to the neck of the sacrificial tips, but some leave a generous amount of needles at the neck. The timing of the poodling of the sacrificial and the degree of poodling seems all over the map between different growers. For the ones growing 100s of JBPs, I think timing is more of a matter of when the grower can make the time to do it than precise sugar deprivation engineering. Since my JBP count is only in the dozens, I go case-by-case and try to hold onto those needles & top-sacrificials until I see signs that the future-shohin area is sputtering under the influence of apical dominance. Then I reduce and/or poodle as necessary.
I haven't yet met or seen any JBP growers who pluck these buds prior to becoming shoots -- I'm tempted by the idea that it would help create a singular super-shoot quicker than normal (since you're not diluting growth at the sacrificial top as much), but on the other hand, my desire for needle mass up there is more urgent than having a clean singular shoot. Check out Ryuchi Kitadani's youtube channel for an example of the "singular central super shoot" strategy.
Allow them to grow out as shoots in spring, let them blast out as shoots, then review what you want to do with them any time after summer solstice. You could vary your strategy between different individuals to see what the response is. Way up in the sacrificial tips, I have found that there's a wide range of preserved leaf mass that is acceptable to the tree before it starts to really lose strength in the lower buds. And keep in mind you have several seasons before the begins to close/narrow on budding likelihood at the base, especially if you have set bends very low into the trunks (shohin-style) as you have here. In my experience, that future-shohin region remains bud-productive even if you have a ton of needle mass way up above so long as 1) it's way up above and 2) not shading that future-shohin area.
The longer you keep those blasted out shoots past solstice, the more sugars they'll contribute back to the rest of the tree, including the tiny bits at the base (+roots), and this can be worth it when you're at this early stage and building lower caliper, and when you haven't really lost any ability to bud at the base.
Any time between July and December, you could reduce the sacrificial top down to 1 or 2 leading shoot(s). Some growers solo that all down to one "super shoot", in some cases selecting the one in the very center (for various reasons. Personally, when I've tried the solo-sacrificial-super-shoot strategy, I've selected the central one so that I can sit JBPs next to one another and keep a slim/narrow footprint -- short on space!).
Other growers keep one or two and maybe even allow some sub-branching to occur up there. At Hagedorn's garden, I've chopped away some sacrificial tops, with sub-branching, whose needle mass would easily be more than the needle mass of all the seedlings in your pictures above combined. Again, the pattern seems to be that you can have a lotta sacrificial growth as long as it's way up there and not shading out anything below.
edit: Here's a picture I took back on May 26th of some chopped off sacrificial tops of JBPs at Hagedorn's: These are pretty massive. Keep this in mind when you're feeling an urgency to inhibit apical dominance.
Most growers later "poodle" (needle strip) the entire sacrificial line all the way from the lowest keep-growth right up to the neck of the sacrificial tips, but some leave a generous amount of needles at the neck. The timing of the poodling of the sacrificial and the degree of poodling seems all over the map between different growers. For the ones growing 100s of JBPs, I think timing is more of a matter of when the grower can make the time to do it than precise sugar deprivation engineering. Since my JBP count is only in the dozens, I go case-by-case and try to hold onto those needles & top-sacrificials until I see signs that the future-shohin area is sputtering under the influence of apical dominance. Then I reduce and/or poodle as necessary.
I haven't yet met or seen any JBP growers who pluck these buds prior to becoming shoots -- I'm tempted by the idea that it would help create a singular super-shoot quicker than normal (since you're not diluting growth at the sacrificial top as much), but on the other hand, my desire for needle mass up there is more urgent than having a clean singular shoot. Check out Ryuchi Kitadani's youtube channel for an example of the "singular central super shoot" strategy.
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