New Maple bonsai questions

[penumbra]

Well it looks like nobody can agree on this so I guess its a crap shoot. I can see the point of argument on both sides. Wouldn't it be nice if you had two of them and could go both ways.
I am not suggesting this necessarily, but if it was mine, it would leave me with two choices.
One, put it in a greenhouse and baby it through the winter and hope for the best. Its a young plant so it might just do fine.
Two, pinch off the new growth and put it in my small fridge through the winter.
Based upon the tridents I have held in the fridge, I would probably do that. Based upon my greenhouse accessibility, would pretty much make it a coin toss. It is from Florida, so that might be the better option.
My last choice, based upon experience with trying to keep a maple inside, would be to forgo that choice.
Lots of people out here and many who have not chimed in, but ultimately it is your choice.
I sincerely hope it makes it regardless of the path you choose.

 

[Deep Sea Diver]

Thanks @penumbra

@rockm I can truly understand your point. Yet delayed dormancy is merely late dormancy. It doesn't matter when it happens as long as the environmental cues exist. Which natural cues do at this time in the year. If that tree came@ from Florida its all messed up anyways and the best thing for it is to get in dormancy and align itself with the environmental cues of Utah.

In Puget Sound all our trees are experiencing delayed dormancy due to the extended warm fall weather. This is about 3 - 4 weeks later then usual... meaning the decades before.

It is true the warm accilimation occurs much faster then reaccilmation. I've seen studies showing it is on the ratio of 1:5 or more. Yet is it reversible. OP's tree is showing some minor growth. That shouldn't matter, especially if the tree is kept below 45 and above 32. There quite of time to accumulate the chill hours this plant needs to achieve (about 1200 or 50 days) full dormancy.

This isn't rocket science here. Alot of the work on horticultural work on chilling requirements is and was being done by groups of practitioners in partnership with researchers to produce a real world product. If it wasn't able to be translated to the real world and produce results for the horticultural world for growers (as the maple study helped) these studies would never get funded.

Anyways, not our tree. I hope the OP has got enough input to make an informed decision.

Yet this was a really good discussion and kept me on my toes! Luckily I was writing about dormancy and wintering over strategies for evergreen azaleas at the time.

I guess we will have to respectfully agree to disagree on this point.

Best
DSD sends

 

[Wulfskaar]

I have no idea what is right, but it just seems like if trees were to die after a late warm spell, there wouldn't be any trees left.