Plucking vs Cutting needles

[Drew]

So I was hoping I could get a few opinions/explanations as to why one method is better that others particularly for JBP (Pinus Thunbergii)..

When you pluck needles from your JBP with tweezers (both needles at once) leaving the sheath:

1. Is there a chance of pulling the dormant bud that sits between these two needles out with them?
2. If you only pulled one needle out at a time would this make any difference?
3. If there is any chance of disturbing the dormant bud at all, why would you not just CUT these needles just above the sheath instead?

Thanks
Drew

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

1. Yes, likely.
2. Maybe; but not reliably.
3. You should cut them if you want any chance of a bud there.

 

[Drew]

Hey Brian thanks for your quick reply. So why do people pull needles at the risk of damaging dormant buds? To me it would make sense to have as many dormant buds (future options) on a tree as possible right?

 

[0soyoung]

Hey Brian thanks for your quick reply. So why do people pull needles at the risk of damaging dormant buds? To me it would make sense to have as many dormant buds (future options) on a tree as possible right?

Not meaning to supercede Brian's response, possible reasons are easy to see.

1. We don't want new shoots going straight up or down - so one can pluck needles on the top and bottom of shoots
   1. but plucking often pulls bark with the fascicle - maybe we should just cut anyway.
   2. actually it is much faster and easier to just use scissors to get rid of all these undesireables.
2. The fascicles are too densely packed - one can pluck something like every other fascicle to reduce the foliage density
   1. but plucking often pulls bark with the fascicle - holy crap! I've got to reach in with closed scissors, and open then only when the points touch the fascicle I want to cut. Practice, practice, practice ...
   2. with JBP, the fascicle can be pulled - still tedious, but much faster and easier than scissors. Practice, practice, practice ...

It is more likely to get a bud at the base of a fascicle (fascicular budding) than where a fascicle was plucked or where needles have dropped (epicormic budding). Plucking or not plucking is largely esthetic, but horticulturally is about getting light to those interior buds that are all important for maintaining (the size and shape of) the canopy.

 

[Vance Wood]

Though most probably would not realize what they are doing they opt for pulling the needles due to the constraints of time and effort. What they actually do get in return is a response from epicormic buds, dormant buds below the bark. It can be difficult to get these puppies to break on a Black Pine but, there you go, that's where those buds come from.

 

[Kodama16]

Same as they said. Always cut needles.

 

[Drew]

Thanks for clearing that up for me fellas

 

[Adair M]

Needle pulling JBP is a complex subject. You pull needles primarily to balance the energy as you refine the tree. On the refined trees.

In trees in development, where more ramification is desired, a more selective needle pulling is called for. That's where you pull the ones on the bottom, and leave every other one on sides.

Once a tree gets to the refinement stage, the only buds we care about are the spring buds, and the adventitious buds. Those that lie at the base of the spring candle. We really don't care about needle buds because we have enough of the stronger buds.

And, so, when we pull needles, it's a clean up operation. Which means we pull the sheath, too.

Needle pulling weakens the tree. If you don't know what you're doing, and why you're doing it, don't do it.

Needle pulling is an advanced tool/technique. Used appropriately, it can really advance a tree. Used incorrectly, it can ruin or kill a tree. Or set it back z couple years.

 

[Adair M]

Only pull needles on really healthy,strong JBP. AS I said before, pulling needles weakens the tree. Let's expand that thought: if you pull needles from one branch or twig, but not the one next to it, you've weakened that one branch relative to the untouched branch.

When we say a JBP is "refined", we generally mean that it has great ramification, and the tree shows even strength all over the tree. Another word we use us "balanced". JBP tend to want to push their growth up, up towards the apex. Thus, left to its own, the apex grows strong, the lower branches get shaded out, become weak, and die. It is our job to prevent this. What we like to see is a tree that is as strong at the bottom as it is at the top.

So, we cannot make one part of the tree stronger than another. All we can do is weaken the parts of the tree that are too strong. Our tools to do that are by pruning and needle pulling.

So, let's say we want to "balance" a JBP. Early spring, the buds will start to grow. Since we want even growth all over, let's try to manage it by pulling some of the previous year needles. At the top of the tree (the strongest part) let's pull all but 5 pairs of needles. Leave the ones closest to the end, pull the ones closer to the trunk.

In the middle part of the tree where it not as strong as the top, leave 7 or 8 pairs of old needles.

Down at the bottom, where the tree is weakest, leave 9 to a dozen pair, or maybe even leave them all.

Is this tedious to count needles? You bet! It's far more difficult to maintain finished trees than most people expect.

Ok, so that was a description of a basic needle pulling technique we employ at repotting time.

Hang on... There's more.

 

[KennedyMarx]

Though most probably would not realize what they are doing they opt for pulling the needles due to the constraints of time and effort. What they actually do get in return is a response from epicormic buds, dormant buds below the bark. It can be difficult to get these puppies to break on a Black Pine but, there you go, that's where those buds come from.

It seems way faster to me to cut the needles than pluck them. Then again my experience is very limited.

 

[Adair M]

Kennedy, we cut JWP and Ponderosa. Their bark is more prone to tearing than JBP.

Often, we wire right after pulling needles. Having a smooth surface to wire to makes detail wiring much easier. When we pull needles on JBP, we get it all, including the sheath. Makes the tree look much better, cleaner, more refined.

 

[Adair M]

Fall JBP needle pulling:

This assumes the tree was decandled during the summer, and has produced its second set of candles.

TIMING IS CRITICAL!!

Do this AFTER the new needles have hardened off. Stopped growing. Test: if a new needle is difficult to pull out of the sheath, it is hardened off. If it pulls out easily, it's too early to work.

First, the new shoots are thinned to two shoots if there were more than two.

Then, the old needles are pulled. For the most part, all the old needles are pulled. For weak areas, leave some. Very weak areas, don't pull any.

The exception is if the tree is going to be shown over the winter. In that case, don't pull as many. A "full" tree looks better when in a show.

If this is the first time the tree was decandled, removing the old long needles will dramatically transform the tree from a shaggy bush to a much more refined looking tree.

Now: why do we do this?

First of all, as mentioned above, it really cleans up the tree. The old, tired needles are removed, leaving only young fresh healthy needles.

Now is the time to wire and style the tree. Removing the old needles makes it much, much easier to wire.

Removing the old needles, and wiring, will expose the interior branches to the sun, promoting back budding.

BUT WAIT! I just pulled needles! Haven't I just destroyed all the back buds?

Yes, and no.

Yes, we've removed the needles (and sheaths) which removed the NEEDLE buds. But we don't care about those.

No, we have not removed the old, dormant "adventitious" buds. Those can still be awakened by exposure to sunlight. And removing the old needles, and wiring out the branches exposes the old wood to the light, so you will get backbudding. These buds are stronger. And can emerge closer to the trunk.

The Fall needle pulling is the most aggressive. If you have a highly refined tree with hundreds of tips, you will be needle pulling for hours on one tree!

Oh! I forgot to mention, if you need to remove old wire, do that first. Then thin shoots. Then pull needles. Then apply wire and style.

 

[Adair M]

Another time to pull JBP needles is at Decandling time. As we go over the tree cutting off the candles, we can also see which parts of the tree are stronger than others. We can tell by the strength of the spring candles that we are cutting off.

So, if two twigs are side by side, and one produced a stronger spring candle than the one next to it, then when we decandle, we may choose to pull some needles from that stronger twig. So that when the summer candles come, they'll be more even.

This is also a good time to remove old needles if the tree still had old needles, for instance if it was shown back in the winter. Another "grooming " tack is to remove the stubs left over from the Decandling the previous summer.

Here is a before and after of my JBP. I decandled, thinned, and pulled needles recently. I had purposely left it a little "thick" last winter because I showed it in the Bay Island Bonsai club show last January.

When the summer candles come in, there will be approximately twice as many new candles as I cut off.

 

[Adair M]

Kennedy: this is not a "fast" process! It easily took me at least 6 hours of concentrated work to make the tree go from pic 1 to pic 2.

Someone took a picture of me during the process. I didn't even notice!


Look carefully in the second picture. You'll see I'm working with scissors in one hand and tweezers in the other!

When doing this kind of work, start at the top of the tree, and work your way down. As you pull needles, they'll fall onto the lower branches. Starting at the top, you'll remove the fallen needles as you work. If you started at the bottom, when you get to the top, the bottom branches would be covered with pulled needles!

Of course, when we wire, we start at the bottom, and work our way up.

 

[Vance Wood]

It's nice to see you posting pictures of trees, and relating your work.

 

[Gilad]

@Adair M , thanks for the detailed information. Regarding JWP: my tree still need to develop (trunk and branches), like - a lot, but has very thick needles on top and on a strong lower branch. Now I'm just feeding, watering and praying for it to stay alive. Once Fall arrive, I wanted to cut some of the old needle and prune a little the new shoots. However, I'm not sure because the general notion is that trunk will develop faster when there's more needles and more photosynthesis. How do you balance rapid growth and maintaining the shape?

 

[dirk hoorelbeke]

sacrifice branches...

 

[Adair M]

Dirk is correct. If there are branches you don't need, let them grow, knowing that eventually you'll cut them off. They'll thicken everything between them and the roots.

Be careful, though, you might create reverse taper,or an unsightly bulge in the trunk. Remove them before that happens.

 

[Gilad]

@Adair M and to cut old needles and prune shoots of the JWP?

 

[M. Frary]

It's nice to see you posting pictures of trees, and relating your work.

See the look on his face in the first picture?
In the zone! Staring that poor pine into submission!