JBP question

Smoke

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Pine no. Three
 

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Smoke

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Pine no. four.
 

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HB Smith

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This statement looks very much like misunderstood biology. Characteristics of any living being are the result of an interaction between its genotype and the environment. Thus changing the environment *may* well change the characteristics in a way, but there is absolutely no certitude that it will. As for JBP, if you have JBP with genetically determined shorter needles in Japan, chances are that even grown elsewhere, they will still exhibit shorter needles than JBP without this particular genetic trait.
The main problem here is how genetically stable are Mikawa JBP pines.

If we are comparing specific varieties of the same species within an identical environment you are correct. But Al, if I understand correctly, is referring to a specific genotype's response to differing environments. Temperature, humidity, soil, fertilizer, pot size, water (quality and quantity), and technique will all play a role in plant response. My understanding of Al's point is that his experience with Mikawa JBP grown in an environment outside of Mikawa will result in a different looking pine.

Needle length in particular is extraordinarily variable in JBP, even within the same genotype in different environments, especially when decandling is involved, in which temperature and timing play vital roles.
 

Smoke

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If we are comparing specific varieties of the same species within an identical environment you are correct. But Al, if I understand correctly, is referring to a specific genotype's response to differing environments. Temperature, humidity, soil, fertilizer, pot size, water (quality and quantity), and technique will all play a role in plant response. My understanding of Al's point is that his experience with Mikawa JBP grown in an environment outside of Mikawa will result in a different looking pine.

Needle length in particular is extraordinarily variable in JBP, even within the same genotype in different environments, especially when decandling is involved, in which temperature and timing play vital roles.

Thank you Howard, wish I had said that. Sometimes these forums try to make everything so technical.

I was especially taken with Alains response given he is 15 degrees higher in latitude and I have a 10 month growing season with annual averages of warm temps above 85 degrees in that 10 months. Pines don't look the same as they may grown in Japan compared to here in the crucible of growing conditions.
 
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Sorry, but your pictures just show that under *some* circonstances *some* pines may have shorter needles than *some* mikawa pines (which by the way are not a genetically stable variant but a local strain) grown in *some* circonstances and I have of course no objection to this observation.

It is, though, vastly different from the very general and biologically wrong statement I quoted.
What I am saying is that given enough time, a plant indeginous to a specific area that has attributes favorable to that area will exhibit new charicteristics of its new surrounding over time.
 

Smoke

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I guess we agree to disagree.

I can speak of other factors but I think my point has been made to my satisfaction in this discourse.
 

Smoke

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I found this from William Valavanis, (whom I suspect we can all agree might know something with wich he is talking about.

William N. Valavanis:Mikawa Japanese black pine is not a dwarf or yastsubusa variant of the common Japanese black pine.

ANY Japanese black pine originating from Aichii Prefecture is considered to be a Mikawa Japanese black pine.

Usually Mikawa Japanese black pine have a brighter green needle color, sometimes shorter needles and often a rough bark. But, these are seedlings and can vary considerably.

If you ask growers on Shikoku Island they will tell you that the Shikoku Japanese black pine are superior. Growers in Aichii Prefecture will tell you Mikawa is better.

99% of the people cannot tell the difference between Mikawa and Shikoku Japanese black pine. And, 99% of the people cannot distinguish a well grown and trained Mikawa, Shikoku or common Japanese black pine from each other.

Pines with straight needles are more highly prized and should be used for bonsai than those with shorter twisted needles. It's easy to develop short needles, but impossible to straighten twisted needles.

Sometimes, the training techniques are more important than the origin of a certain species.

All I have ever stated in this thread is that when someone buys seeds from a seller that is making the seeds seem magical because of some suffix added to a latin name of a plant does not necessarily mean that what you end up with is what you see in the picture on ebay , probably lifted from Kimura's web site.

I never stated that black pines will magicaly turn into red pines when grown from black pine seed from Japan grown in America. That would be absurd. I have been around for a while and I do, contrary to popular belief, know a few things. "Mikawa" is not a varient, nor a cultivar. It is a Japanese Black Pine, plain and simple, and subject to growing conditions around the world.


BTW, know one can tell from some pictures of a pine where it came from.

Tanlu, I am surprised at your statement since the quote above came from William V. in your thread about Mikawa's at Bonsai Study Group. Did you just disregard what Bill had to say?

Brian Van Fleet, you sound pretty sure of yourself. You are wrong.
 
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tanlu

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Smoke,

You got me on that one. I had forgotten about William's reply on Bonsaistudygroup. William is right in the sense that JBP with shorter needles can be produced anywhere depending on cultivation techniques. However, my intention was NOT to state that Mikawa Black Pines actually are a specific variety of JBP. I stand by what I said in that the JBP in the Mikawa area MAY have cross-pollenated with seedlings that happen to have qualities desired in bonsai, making that particular short-needle trait more common amongst seedlings in that area. My Mikawa JBP seedling does have noticeably shorter needles on it's sacrifice branches than other JBPs I've observed in local parks. But they still have to be reduced more in proportion to the tree.

Perhaps an even better example is my JWPs. I have 2 JWP 7y/o seedlings I purchased from Julian Adams (sprouted in the US , but from seeds collected around Mt Ishizuchi in Shikoku) that have remarkably shorter needles than the JWP seedling I purchased here. Their needles are at least 60% shorter, and the color is a silver-blueish-green, where as the 12y/o seedling I purchased here is mainly a pale yellowish green.

In the end it all has to do with the traits of the parents.
 

Smoke

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Smoke,

You got me on that one. I had forgotten about William's reply on Bonsaistudygroup. William is right in the sense that JBP with shorter needles can be produced anywhere depending on cultivation techniques. However, my intention was NOT to state that Mikawa Black Pines actually are a specific variety of JBP. I stand by what I said in that the JBP in the Mikawa area MAY have cross-pollenated with seedlings that happen to have qualities desired in bonsai, making that particular short-needle trait more common amongst seedlings in that area. My Mikawa JBP seedling does have noticeably shorter needles on it's sacrifice branches than other JBPs I've observed in local parks. But they still have to be reduced more in proportion to the tree.

Perhaps an even better example is my JWPs. I have 2 JWP 7y/o seedlings I purchased from Julian Adams (sprouted in the US , but from seeds collected around Mt Ishizuchi in Shikoku) that have remarkably shorter needles than the JWP seedling I purchased here. Their needles are at least 60% shorter, and the color is a silver-blueish-green, where as the 12y/o seedling I purchased here is mainly a pale yellowish green.

In the end it all has to do with the traits of the parents.

You and many others are making this way harder that it is. Cross pollination can happen anywhere at any time since pines are wind borne pollinators. so that means nothing.

The most "IMPORTANT" thing about growing pine from seed is not where it came from, not who it came from, but who selects the sprouts. 100 seeds may produce 3 plants suitable for bonsai while sometimes 100 seeds may produce 50 suitable for bonsai. Carefull selection of the best sprouts, the strongest sprouts and those that show charecteristics suitable for bonsai should be kept while culling out the rest.

I have growers right here where I live that plant many pine seeds. Most of them Mikawa, and I can tell you that for the most part only about 10 percent ever show the traits that you and Alain speak of. The rest are scrawney, long internodes, long candles, and long needles.

I can take the best looking Mikawa bonsai ever produced in the world and leave it be in Fresno CA for three years and you would never know the plant again. The candles would be 15 inches long and the needles would look like a ponderosa pine. Of course Kenji Miyata is growing all sorts of pines 45 miles from my house that "He says, is the best growing region in the world". He is growing pines in shorter time that he ever thought possible. Of course with a 10 month growing season and the correct techniques it is easy to see why.

Send a couple pines out from New York and I can lengthen those short needles for ya:rolleyes:
 

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Smoke

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Those fields are where this pine came from. From seed planted in my birth year, 1955.
 

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Smoke

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Smoke,

In the end it all has to do with the traits of the parents.

hmmm...I gave a buck to a guy today outside of Wendy's at lunch. He told me three years ago he was a manager of a large department store making $80,000.00 a year. He doesn't look so good today.


traits of the parents only goes so far.....environment is everything!
 

Brian Van Fleet

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Brian Van Fleet, you sound pretty sure of yourself. You are wrong.

Ouch...surely I can't be more than 1/2 wrong...#4 screams Muranaka = Mikawa. Either that or maybe you need to check your stance when watering...you watering left-handed? Holding your mouth right? :D

As for long needles...Are you candle-cutting too early? Don't give them more than 100 days to regrow. Here, it's July 4, for you it's probably a few weeks later...?
 

Smoke

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Ouch...surely I can't be more than 1/2 wrong...#4 screams Muranaka = Mikawa. Either that or maybe you need to check your stance when watering...you watering left-handed? Holding your mouth right? :D

As for long needles...Are you candle-cutting too early? Don't give them more than 100 days to regrow. Here, it's July 4, for you it's probably a few weeks later...?

Ok...half right. But the question was pick the "two" mikawas. You only picked one so you were wrong. But since you read here often and since I have posted that tree more than twice, you would have to get it right.

Finally, someone has answered the mystery question with the answer and probably didn't even know it. JPB is so versatile to technique that even a bind caveman can make short needles on a pine by stressing the piss out of it.

You are trying to teach an ole dog a new trick by throwing dates to candle prune a pine to grow short needles while I am saying just let the plant grow as nature intended (apples and apples) for the sake of technique or the lack thereof for the sake of this thread, and compare them needle for needle. Store bought, grown in New York City pine in a one gallon container from some big box store nursery and that of a Mikawa black pine in a one gallon container. Grow the two in the same atmospheric conditions for three years a piece and show me what you get. I'll bet the two will be indistinguishable.

Yet I bet there may be some that can make the plain ole JBP look like a Mikawa while the real Mikawa looks crappy.

BTW, I can get three bursts of buds on a pine here where I live.
 

Thomas J.

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BTW, I can get three bursts of buds on a pine here where I live.


If I remember correctly, that was one of the first articles I remember reading in Bonsai Today magazine by Ernie Kuo, who mentioned his living in Ca. was great for developing pines in one season. Haven't much about Ernie in a long time, wonder if he still travels around. I have some fond memories of him coming to our club meetings way back when.
 

Brian Van Fleet

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Ok...half right. But the question was pick the "two" mikawas. You only picked one so you were wrong. But since you read here often and since I have posted that tree more than twice, you would have to get it right.

Finally, someone has answered the mystery question with the answer and probably didn't even know it. JPB is so versatile to technique that even a bind caveman can make short needles on a pine by stressing the piss out of it.

You are trying to teach an ole dog a new trick by throwing dates to candle prune a pine to grow short needles while I am saying just let the plant grow as nature intended (apples and apples) for the sake of technique or the lack thereof for the sake of this thread, and compare them needle for needle. Store bought, grown in New York City pine in a one gallon container from some big box store nursery and that of a Mikawa black pine in a one gallon container. Grow the two in the same atmospheric conditions for three years a piece and show me what you get. I'll bet the two will be indistinguishable.

Yet I bet there may be some that can make the plain ole JBP look like a Mikawa while the real Mikawa looks crappy.

BTW, I can get three bursts of buds on a pine here where I live.

For the record, I haven't rejected your nature vs. nurture claim...I think nurture has to have the potential to impact needle length and even color; who knows what that impact would be or how long it would take. But, I have seen "freshly" imported Mikawa pines, and their needles and bark had a distinctly different hue. Again, is that genetic or environmental?

I do know that my Mikawa has been growing in the same atmospheric conditions as the "standard" JBP next to it for 3 the last years and they are no closer to being indistinguishable...that may change, but it hasn't yet. In fact, it looks pretty much like your #4, except fuller. hmmm....
 

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tanlu

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Brian,

Your Mikawa JBP's needles and bark looks an awful lot like mine, and I'm still not sure if that's a coincidence...
 
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