Query regarding technique to thicken a branch from Peter Tea

[Drew]

Here is what I do: I remove ALL the side branches and foliage from escape or sacrifice branches because they tend to shade the bonsai. One growing tip will thicken the trunk and branch much quicker. Get all that foliage AWAY from the bonsai, keep it to one side where it will not shade the tree.

Also its important to remember not to allow the escape branch to get too thick, especially with evergreens. They take a long time to cover with bark after removing. Best to keep it for a season or two or three, then replace the escape branch with another. The scars will be smaller on the trunk and will cover quicker.

So I have a question on this, when will the replacement sacrifice branch start adding to the girth of the trunk? will it start adding girth straight away or would it have to be almost as thick as the branch you removed before it add girth? OR is it a numbers game... ie if you remove one large sacrifice branch and replace it with 4 or 5 smaller ones will they add girth to the trunk the same way as the one large branch you removed?

 

[Adair M]

So I have a question on this, when will the replacement sacrifice branch start adding to the girth of the trunk? will it start adding girth straight away or would it have to be almost as thick as the branch you removed before it add girth? OR is it a numbers game... ie if you remove one large sacrifice branch and replace it with 4 or 5 smaller ones will they add girth to the trunk the same way as the one large branch you removed?

No, multiple branches compete for the tree's resources. Having a single leader works best. Think "trunk"!

 

[0soyoung]

No, multiple branches compete for the tree's resources. Having a single leader works best. Think "trunk"!

The only resource they could compete for is water and minerals from the roots.
Otherwise the tips and foliage are the engine that produces thickening in the stem/trunk below.

Maybe we should think about how multiple branches could lead to shading of foliage on one another, hence reducing their photosynthetic productivity, but that gets complicated because foliage adjusts the light level and maybe there is no effective reduction because of mutual shading.

Returning to the 'competing for resources' idea, multiple branches could compete against each other so that the water and minerals that go to one must be shared instead, if there are multiple branches. But then the sum of many is still the same as one = only one would cause the same thickening as many, not more. Would this be what you mean?

 

[Adair M]

The only resource they could compete for is water and minerals from the roots.
Otherwise the tips and foliage are the engine that produces thickening in the stem/trunk below.

Maybe we should think about how multiple branches could lead to shading of foliage on one another, hence reducing their photosynthetic productivity, but that gets complicated because foliage adjusts the light level and maybe there is no effective reduction because of mutual shading.

Returning to the 'competing for resources' idea, multiple branches could compete against each other so that the water and minerals that go to one must be shared instead, if there are multiple branches. But then the sum of many is still the same as one = only one would cause the same thickening as many, not more. Would this be what you mean?

Oso, what I have observed is that most trees like to have a central leader. That is the tallest point on the tree. I don't know how the tree determines height, but somehow it does. If you let a side branch go, and it doesn't get as tall as the apex, it doesn't get nearly as thick as a main leader would. If you take that strong main leader, and wire it down, so that the lower sacrifice is now the highest point on the tree, yes, you will see that the lower sacrifice branch thickens faster than the previous leader. Because it's tip is now taller than the previous sacrifice branch.

Nothing to do with foliage density.

I have branches on my JBP with many, many twigs, and a huge amount of needles. None of the branches, subbranches or twigs appear to get any thicker every year. Yet a leader Candle at the top of the tree can be 1/4 inch in diameter before it's even produced the first needle!

I believe it's tied to our old friend auxin. Not foliage mass. Otherwise, why would an apex sacrifice still thicken even after much of the foliage is stripped from it? (See Bill Valavanis' post above.)

 

[0soyoung]

Trees are made out of thin air

by photosynthesis.
Wood is mostly made of cellulose. More wood effectively makes a bigger pipeline to supply water and minerals to the foliage. Cellulose is just polymerized sugar. Bark is more complicated, but made from sugars manufactured by photosynthesis. Auxins, cytokinins, ethylene, gibberellins and strigolactones are just chemical messengers that steer the growth processes.

I agree about apical dominance, but we aren't discussing that. We've been debating whether lateral branches (let's say near the apex) will or will not add more sugars (from photosynthesis in the foliage above) with which to build more wood and bark in the stem below and more than one apical meristem (branch tip) will produce more auxin to stimulate that growth than just one above.

I think the bottom line is that

it is conceivable that many branches above affect such a small amount of additional thickening as to not really matter in practical terms. But many branches could never lead to less growth than just one.

Regarding your pines, if what you say is true, you would never need to remove the heavy wire on branches off the trunk. We know that simply isn't true, though it only needs to be removed less frequently less frequently than from thinner/younger shoots.

 

[my nellie]

This is my prunus mume I started from seed in the spring of last year. Right now it has a 5' leader and some shorter branches down low. Would it help grow the trunk to cut off everything but the leader? Will it get some taper by keeping the sacrifice branches on the lower trunk? Yes, this thread is awesome, but I'm trying to get some clarification.
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Your tree is very young.
I think you need to let the tree grow freely in a large container, without pruning it for several years.
Best if you can put it into a colander or a plastic container to which you open lots of holes for the roots to escape and then place this into a bigger container. Better in the ground if you have this possibility...
Every 2 years or each year (according to your climate) you will cut off the escaping roots, prune length of branches and start a new cycle.
Once you have a satisfactory thickness of the trunk you can make your branch selection and place the tree in a smaller pot.
Then you can make use of sacrifice branches for further thickening of trunk and branches.
This is what I would like to do but of course you will hear more from other expert members.

 

[sorce]

I went and looked at my silver maple which started pushing shoots all at about the same time.
All from equally healthy parts of the trunk.

Some observations.

They are all visually the same size.
Maybe millimeters difference.

The thickest one is the tallest.
But also has the nastiest collar bulge.

The one that got clipped at about 4 ft, has 4 new shoots that made the same height as the rest of the tree....
And it remains the smallest.

The biggest one has side branches, I don't feel like cutting them off is going to make it any fatter.

Sorce

 

[fviljoen963]

From a botanical background... there is some truth in this thread and there is stuff thats technically true.. but not right either

Tree height is determined by the the osmotic pumping potential of the xylem (vascular bundle tissues) among a whole lot of other things, connifer and non-connifer vascular bundles differ here.
Will multiple tips produce more auxin? YES. But it also signals the plant that there is no need to grow taller, it already reached the sun. Because in most plants an absence of certain useable wavelengths of light triggers blue light responses-- this helps elongate the plant and helps it reach the light (treespeak: HEy hey hey the light is that way!). The opposite is Red-light responses which are elicited under high light intensity and this slows growth (treespeak: stop growing we have reached the tree canopy!)

Why does a single apical tip produce more length? Because Auxin is produced there. Auxin drives cell division and elongation on a chemical level. Auxin also has a short halflife so it quickly breaks down into Cytokinin. Auxin and Cytokinin has antagonistic natures. Its a give and take. Cytokinin stimulates cell expansion and "filling". Also _-->Lateral branching. SO yes theres a whole lotta auxin in your bushy tree. But thats also the reason it will stay bushy. Thats why ramification stays ramified on a mature tree until a watershoot pops. More on the antagonism... auxin produces elongation in shoots... and Branching in thee roots. more branching because more height repuires more feeding and more anchorage.
Cytokinin driving branching in the shoots encourages elongation in the roots... more foliage.. more water needed.. roots need to start going deeper.

This is very general... there are exceptions to all rules and variations of everything.

 

[sorce]

From a botanical background... there is some truth in this thread and there is stuff thats technically true.. but not right either

Tree height is determined by the the osmotic pumping potential of the xylem (vascular bundle tissues) among a whole lot of other things, connifer and non-connifer vascular bundles differ here.
Will multiple tips produce more auxin? YES. But it also signals the plant that there is no need to grow taller, it already reached the sun. Because in most plants an absence of certain useable wavelengths of light triggers blue light responses-- this helps elongate the plant and helps it reach the light (treespeak: HEy hey hey the light is that way!). The opposite is Red-light responses which are elicited under high light intensity and this slows growth (treespeak: stop growing we have reached the tree canopy!)

Why does a single apical tip produce more length? Because Auxin is produced there. Auxin drives cell division and elongation on a chemical level. Auxin also has a short halflife so it quickly breaks down into Cytokinin. Auxin and Cytokinin has antagonistic natures. Its a give and take. Cytokinin stimulates cell expansion and "filling". Also _-->Lateral branching. SO yes theres a whole lotta auxin in your bushy tree. But thats also the reason it will stay bushy. Thats why ramification stays ramified on a mature tree until a watershoot pops. More on the antagonism... auxin produces elongation in shoots... and Branching in thee roots. more branching because more height repuires more feeding and more anchorage.
Cytokinin driving branching in the shoots encourages elongation in the roots... more foliage.. more water needed.. roots need to start going deeper.

This is very general... there are exceptions to all rules and variations of everything.

So in theory.....

Wrapping the growing end loosely in heavy shade cloth should keep it growing more?

Blue light inducing?

Sorce

 

[Adair M]

Trees are made out of thin air

by photosynthesis.
Wood is mostly made of cellulose. More wood effectively makes a bigger pipeline to supply water and minerals to the foliage. Cellulose is just polymerized sugar. Bark is more complicated, but made from sugars manufactured by photosynthesis. Auxins, cytokinins, ethylene, gibberellins and strigolactones are just chemical messengers that steer the growth processes.

I agree about apical dominance, but we aren't discussing that. We've been debating whether lateral branches (let's say near the apex) will or will not add more sugars (from photosynthesis in the foliage above) with which to build more wood and bark in the stem below and more than one apical meristem (branch tip) will produce more auxin to stimulate that growth than just one above.

I think the bottom line is that

it is conceivable that many branches above affect such a small amount of additional thickening as to not really matter in practical terms. But many branches could never lead to less growth than just one.

Regarding your pines, if what you say is true, you would never need to remove the heavy wire on branches off the trunk. We know that simply isn't true, though it only needs to be removed less frequently less frequently than from thinner/younger shoots.

Actually, Oso, on my most ramified mature pine, I have had wire on the main branches for 4 years! And it's not cut in. The small young branches have cut in.

 

[Dav4]

Actually, Oso, on my most ramified mature pine, I have had wire on the main branches for 4 years! And it's not cut in. The small young branches have cut in.

Slacker!!

 

[Adair M]

Slacker!!

True that!

I have a lot of unwiring and rewiring to do this fall!

So, I've started with this JWP, that I just wired in March! It was already cutting in!

After removing wire: (I did remove the wire on the first branch, after tightening the guy wire.)



Lower branches wired:



Middle branches wired:



And I still have to do the apex.

 

[63pmp]

Don't forget roots! Without healthy root system and appropriate fertilizer plan you ain't getting thickening anywhere.

 

[fviljoen963]

So in theory.....

Wrapping the growing end loosely in heavy shade cloth should keep it growing more?

Blue light inducing?

Sorce

Yes. Basically. Same as lowering an upright shoot slows water flow to that shoot resulting in less growth. You would essentially be shading that growing end. Pinching would remove the apical tip, producing an excess of cytokinin producing branching

 

[papymandarin]

actually, i believe what is underlying Peter Tea advice (just have a look at his blog it's quite clearly explained) is that by removing side branches of the sacrifice branche, you concentrate all the push of growth in the apical shoot what will make it grow very much longer than with keeping side branches...and in the end what really matters is the lenght of branch the tree has to support, and it will need to thicken much more at the base of the branche to support the arm of lever of a 2 meter long branch rather than a 1 meter ramified one. Mechanical constraints in the wood are the primary reason why a tree deposit wood somewhere.

 

[wlambeth]

Whatever happened to Peter Tea???

 

[jacob letoile]

From a botanical background... there is some truth in this thread and there is stuff thats technically true.. but not right either

Tree height is determined by the the osmotic pumping potential of the xylem (vascular bundle tissues) among a whole lot of other things, connifer and non-connifer vascular bundles differ here.
Will multiple tips produce more auxin? YES. But it also signals the plant that there is no need to grow taller, it already reached the sun. Because in most plants an absence of certain useable wavelengths of light triggers blue light responses-- this helps elongate the plant and helps it reach the light (treespeak: HEy hey hey the light is that way!). The opposite is Red-light responses which are elicited under high light intensity and this slows growth (treespeak: stop growing we have reached the tree canopy!)

Why does a single apical tip produce more length? Because Auxin is produced there. Auxin drives cell division and elongation on a chemical level. Auxin also has a short halflife so it quickly breaks down into Cytokinin. Auxin and Cytokinin has antagonistic natures. Its a give and take. Cytokinin stimulates cell expansion and "filling". Also _-->Lateral branching. SO yes theres a whole lotta auxin in your bushy tree. But thats also the reason it will stay bushy. Thats why ramification stays ramified on a mature tree until a watershoot pops. More on the antagonism... auxin produces elongation in shoots... and Branching in thee roots. more branching because more height repuires more feeding and more anchorage.
Cytokinin driving branching in the shoots encourages elongation in the roots... more foliage.. more water needed.. roots need to start going deeper.

This is very general... there are exceptions to all rules and variations of everything.

Yes. Basically. Same as lowering an upright shoot slows water flow to that shoot resulting in less growth. You would essentially be shading that growing end. Pinching would remove the apical tip, producing an excess of cytokinin producing branching

Would that excess cytokinin then cause more thickening of that branch and everything below than if you had left the growing tip?

 

[fviljoen963]

Would that excess cytokinin then cause more thickening of that branch and everything below than if you had left the growing tip?

No, the hormones are just command molecules, more cytokinin means more backbudding. amount of growth and therefore water requirements and structural tissue (also called stress tissue) in a longer leader is what amounts to more growth.

 

[Shima]

Oso, it seems logical that foliage mass would thicken branches, but it doesn't work that way. It is terminal tip growth that puts on the girth!

You see, in the spring the tree uses its stored sugars to create the new leaves and stems. It's not until the growth phase is over that the tree begins to create more sugars than it consumes. So little thickening occurs on the old wood during spring. Fall is when you see branches fattening up! By that time the tree is storing excess sugars for the following spring.

Now, why does terminal growth work better than ramification? Terminal tips produce MORE auxins than ramification.

Take, for example, my avatar pine. Highly ramified, lots of foliage density. Each branchlet gets longer by 1/4 to 1/2 inch longer each year, but the branches do not thicken any. Actually, each year, each terminal node produces two new summer candles after decandling. Each year the number of little twigs on the tree doubles! But the trunk does not get any noticeably thicker.

On the other hand, I have a project tree with little ramification that I'm letting some of the branches grow out some. On those branches, there's little foliage except for the terminal tips. But, those terminal candles grew 8 to 12 inches! And thickened the branch considerably.

So... Peter Tea's method works.

Gold.

 

[Gustavo Martins]

it is conceivable that many branches above affect such a small amount of additional thickening as to not really matter in practical terms. But many branches could never lead to less growth than just one.

I'm with Oso here and I think this is key here.
I also think that the reason why many defoliate the escape branches/leader is to reduce shading on the main tree. Not to reduce (or maximize) the growth/thickening of the branch/trunk.

And mature bonsai (life Adair's pine) may act differently because they are pot bound. That's why we plant trees in tiny pots right? reduce/constrain/minimize their growth...

Now, I'm no expert. Far from it. But I do have a brain and a background in Biology... It seems illogical that reducing the branches on the leader will increase its thickening, since we are essentially removing lots of terminal buds, all contributing for the growth of that brach.

Also, before we even think about competition, we need to show that resources are limiting (which is seldom the case with our bonsai I'd assume). Otherwise there is no competition. What would they be competing for?

my two pence