Maple 'red' leaf question

[Guitartrain]

Hey all! New to this forum but had been working with bonsai for a few years.
Some back-story. I moved into my current home 8 years ago. Noticing there are ample freebies (maples) growing around the property I decided to cultivate some. I got lazy...my wife got tired of seeing those sapplings in the mulch that I'd said 'don't get rid of those!' so threw them in a coffee can, where they sat for a year. Finally I put them in a proper pot but kept them together. Not a grouping, but a cluster. Literally, a fist full o' maples. After numerous root-pruning and general branch cut-back and even leaf-pruning, I root-pruned earlier this year and they are still actually independant of each other (which is kinda the opposite of what I'd have expected).
But this year I've noticed something different. One of the old individual maples still has it's reddish tinge to it's leaves, as if it's still in mid-spring. It's now June 29th, and they have all been together for those 7 years. The leaves got to full-, normal- size as usual, and on-schedual. Of the clump of maples, this is 'one' is equal in height to the main 'strong' maple, although that one has a thicker trunk girth. I take the two to be the 'strongest'. They grow the tallest, the fastest, and have the most 'luck' with branch-cutting. I'd take a pic, but it's now raining on this hot Iowa day.
Any ideas as to why this is happening??

 

[thumblessprimate]

Are you wondering why the one with red tinged leaf is growing vigorously or are you you wondering why it's leaf is tinged red this year or both?

 

[Guitartrain]

Why the leaves are still red tinged. In fact mostly red, with a little green near the veins.
There was nothing done in the last year that was drastic or traumatic, in terms of pruning or soil change, etc. Maybe I should pont out that its full-size cousins (in my and my neighbors's yards) are all normal green, with one exception. There is a maple behind my house whose leaves haven't ever gotten full size. It's like that tree is still back in early spring too. Given that this tree and all the others around here, are at least 50 years old, that may have something to do with it. This is the first year I've ever seen it from that tree. We had a strange winter here in Iowa. Spring came really early, and we never had a deep snow. Everything came early this year. My wife's iris's were completely done a week before Memorial Day, for example, but they usually are in their prime that particular weekend.

 

[thumblessprimate]

I believe there's an expert out there that says that a Japanese maple's true leaves don't show up until about after the it's 3rd year. So if a seedling grew started out with peculiarly small leaves, dissected leaves, or red leaves, it may have different leaves for the later part of its life usually after about the 3rd year. In your case it may have just took it 7 years.

I'm not an expert, so this could be possibly be something else.

 

[Guitartrain]

Ok, but this is a sugar maple. To add to the strange Iowa summer I mentioned earlier, I noticed a sugar maple in my front yard that still has half its 'helicopters', and these are all green not old and dried up. In about April this same tree was dropping them as usual. Why did it keep half of them? Again, it's been a strange year. I'm not worried about the reddish leaves, it's just something I've been wondering about. Maybe the maples in my neighborhood are in a time-freeze?

 

[thumblessprimate]

I can't tell for sure. There's a guy in these parts that grow maples; primarily Acer truncatum. He's got some patented. Before he gets them patented, it seems he observes them for 3 years or more. He's got one with interesting rough textured bark, but the thing stayed about 3 feet even after 10 years. If he were to graft it on a good rootstock, the tree might grow faster though.

Anyways, if you find that you have a unique maple that can consistently keep desirable characteristics, you could apply for a patent and share the tree, give away scion to people interested, or keep it for your own pleasure.

 

[Smoke]

Most of the new leaves on my tridents come out red. they turn green in about four or five days.

Nice leaves for 101 temps last week.....

 

[Smoke]

As soon as the leaf starts to photosynthesize, it turns green from the production of chlorophyll. Many plants have red leaves when they unroll.

Even green asparagus is red when it pushes from the gound.