Most excellent Peter Tea blog post about summer work on Maples!

[Gustavo Martins]

The tree in the video at 7:50 in. The one they are repotting. It’s made with a dozen sacrifice branches. The narrator says something about hw the branches thicken the trunk. That technique, using lots of sacrifice branches isn’t being done any more.

Yes... Before 1980 it worked, but then it stopped working?

I use it in 2018... I cut down and let grow free. All of growth above is to be cut in the future...

About competition among branches talked about above... I have two things to say about this to feed our thinking...
1. one assumption of competition is that resources are limiting. Otherwise there is no competition. How are side shoots limiting the apical shoot?
2. Apical dominance... this means that it is the apical shoot that dominates and controls the growth of the shoots below. It inhibits their growth via hormonal regulation. Not the other way around. So... are those side and lower shoots really competing with the main branch?

 

[papymandarin]

1) pot: space/resources limitations, even without the pot i don't know of trees having unlimited roots volume to provide unlimited water supply
2) the apical dominance system is obviously not "absolute", there are limitations to it in space and/or time, or all trees would be a unique shoot forever without ramifying. That's actually what you create artificially with this technique in order to create more elongation than you would have obtain naturally.

this game can last a long time, believe it or not, do it or not, but running pages of hypothesis to try to refute it will not change the fact it's a widely used technique giving satisfaction to a number or practioners/growers....get over it

 

[Adair M]

Yes... Before 1980 it worked, but then it stopped working?

I use it in 2018... I cut down and let grow free. All of growth above is to be cut in the future...

About competition among branches talked about above... I have two things to say about this to feed our thinking...
1. one assumption of competition is that resources are limiting. Otherwise there is no competition. How are side shoots limiting the apical shoot?
2. Apical dominance... this means that it is the apical shoot that dominates and controls the growth of the shoots below. It inhibits their growth via hormonal regulation. Not the other way around. So... are those side and lower shoots really competing with the main branch?

It’s not that it stopped working, they found better ways to get a tapered trunk faster, and with less scarring. One of the things JBP are admired for is the beautiful bark. But callous tissue doesn’t bark over as well as undamaged tissue. So, the end result, a highly tapered, scarred trunk, was ugly!

They found the could build taper using one apical sacrifice branch at a time that builds taper just as fast if not faster than the many branches method, but it built a much “cleaner” trunk. So, the multiple sacrifice method was discontinued.

In short, they found that no one would buy the final product! So, they stopped making them!

 

[Gustavo Martins]

1) pot: space/resources limitations, even without the pot i don't know of trees having unlimited roots volume to provide unlimited water supply
2) the apical dominance system is obviously not "absolute", there are limitations to it in space and/or time, or all trees would be a unique shoot forever without ramifying. That's actually what you create artificially with this technique in order to create more elongation than you would have obtain naturally.

this game can last a long time, believe it or not, do it or not, but running pages of hypothesis to try to refute it will not change the fact it's a widely used technique giving satisfaction to a number or practioners/growers....get over it

Lol. Trees don't neem unlimited rota and water is mot always limiting.

Anyways. I have gotten over it. But you keep saying things that are not proven. More, you assume that you are absolutely right and everyone else who disagrees is wrong. Because you seen it with your eyes. As I said, you observations are biased and flawed.

I may not be a great bonsai grower but I am very good at stats and excel in experimental design, and I have the habit of question things that are , let's say , dodgy.

 

[Gustavo Martins]

It’s not that it stopped working, they found better ways to get a tapered trunk faster, and with less scarring. One of the things JBP are admired for is the beautiful bark. But callous tissue doesn’t bark over as well as undamaged tissue. So, the end result, a highly tapered, scarred trunk, was ugly!

They found the could build taper using one apical sacrifice branch at a time that builds taper just as fast if not faster than the many branches method, but it built a much “cleaner” trunk. So, the multiple sacrifice method was discontinued.

In short, they found that no one would buy the final product! So, they stopped making them!

Exactly. They stopped , so you say, because it produced a lot of scars. That's the main reason, not because it is faster.

 

[bonsaichile]

When @Smoke or @Adair talk, I listen, for I have seen what they do with trees and their results. when someone like @Gustavo Martins talks, I read but not really listen, for I have not seen his trees, or, if I have, they were unremarkable enough for me not to remember them.
It boils down to that, I think: trees

 

[Adair M]

Exactly. They stopped , so you say, because it produced a lot of scars. That's the main reason, not because it is faster.

Fastest is not necessarily the goal in bonsai.

If the end result is unacceptable, it doesn’t matter how fast you can make it happen!

 

[papymandarin]

then again Gustavo (it's starting to be repetitive i'm afraid), you probably don't believe anything in bonsai, nothing of it has been subject to your dear unbiased/unflawed experiments in bonsai (again i know all this too, i'm a biologist too), bonsai is not a science. You need unbiased data, get them, good luck and cu in 5 years.
And you made me laugh saying i think i am absolutely right and unable to stand contradiction (another used trick in an argument, blame the other for what you're doing yourself) when you spend your time refuting even the possibility this technique you never used can work, out of nothing more than hypothesis (why should i accept your hypothesis when you are requiring yourself proofs?), and despite the numbers practicing it successfully. At least i have some experience of the technique, which even if biased, is still more than what you have, get over it.

 

[papymandarin]

.

 

[Gustavo Martins]

then again Gustavo (it's starting to be repetitive i'm afraid), you probably don't believe anything in bonsai, nothing of it has been subject to your dear unbiased/unflawed experiments in bonsai (again i know all this too, i'm a biologist too), bonsai is not a science. You need unbiased data, get them, good luck and cu in 5 years.
And you made me laugh saying i think i am absolutely right and unable to stand contradiction (another used trick in an argument, blame the other for what you're doing yourself) when you spend your time refuting even the possibility this technique you never used can work, out of nothing more than hypothesis (why should i accept your hypothesis when you are requiring yourself proofs?), and despite the numbers practicing it successfully. At least i have some experience of the technique, which even if biased, is still more than what you have, get over it.

lol...

 

[Gustavo Martins]

When @Smoke or @Adair talk, I listen, for I have seen what they do with trees and their results. when someone like @Gustavo Martins talks, I read but not really listen, for I have not seen his trees, or, if I have, they were unremarkable enough for me not to remember them.
It boils down to that, I think: trees

Exactly... But you've seen Michael's

 

[bonsaichile]

Exactly... But you've seen Michael's

Show me your trees, because you seem to have a big mouth and nothing to show for it. Como dijo Borges, los españoles confunden gritar con tener la razon

 

[Gustavo Martins]

Fastest is not necessarily the goal in bonsai.

If the end result is unacceptable, it doesn’t matter how fast you can make it happen!

man.... we're going in circles.... And then it's me. Was this technique supposed to get trunks thicker fast? Are we kidding here?

 

[Gustavo Martins]

then again Gustavo (it's starting to be repetitive i'm afraid), you probably don't believe anything in bonsai, nothing of it has been subject to your dear unbiased/unflawed experiments in bonsai (again i know all this too, i'm a biologist too), bonsai is not a science. You need unbiased data, get them, good luck and cu in 5 years.
And you made me laugh saying i think i am absolutely right and unable to stand contradiction (another used trick in an argument, blame the other for what you're doing yourself) when you spend your time refuting even the possibility this technique you never used can work, out of nothing more than hypothesis (why should i accept your hypothesis when you are requiring yourself proofs?), and despite the numbers practicing it successfully. At least i have some experience of the technique, which even if biased, is still more than what you have, get over it.

one more thing and then I'm done. Unlike you who only talked, I showed scientific research showing you otherwise. I have not tested myself but some else has, and used scientific methods... You don't believe... fine. Good bye.

 

[Gustavo Martins]

Show me your trees, because you seem to have a big mouth and nothing to show for it. Como dijo Borges, los españoles confunden gritar con tener la razon

I have started bonsai two years ago... My trees are still developing... Many from cuttings or seeds and I have no desire to spend big bucks on tree to show off.

I do not need to have a Ferrari to know how to drive or be a mechanic. And I'm not spanish.

 

[bonsaichile]

I do not need to have a Ferrari to know how to drive or be a mechanic

Sure, as we say in English, those who can't, teach lol

 

[bonsaichile]

I do not need to have a Ferrari to know how to drive or be a mechanic

In the end, it is all about the treea, and you don't have enough street credit to be goimg around giving lessons to anyone, espannolito

 

[Gustavo Martins]

Sure, as we say in English, those who can't, teach lol

I'm sure you got a Ferrari. Good for you...

 

[Gustavo Martins]

In the end, it is all about the treea, and you don't have enough street credit to be goimg around giving lessons to anyone, espannolito

Sure... and papymandarin does right?

 

[Gustavo Martins]

Happy growing. I'm out.