0soyoung
Imperial Masterpiece
I have an acer palmatum trunk from which I air-layered the top. The following winter it suffered some rather severe dieback. The pattern is, in itself, rather interesting. Notice how the upper branches are green all around the branch collar and that the bark remains green below. The dieback is a vertical strip that extends downward to the collar of a branch below. I think this must reflect the combined flow of photosynthate and auxin in the phloem – I’ve never had another instance so extreme. Aside from the branch collars, the combined flow was largely longitudinal (i.e., vertically downward, toward the roots) with little, if any of it went around the bole.
Regardless, the fact that two shoots/branches at the top of the tree are very nearly opposed is another interesting feature of this ‘stump’. The dieback strips on opposite sides of the bole are, therefore, about as perfectly matched a pair of ‘wounds’ as one will ever find and they are on the same tree!
On 11Mar15 I took this opportunity to test some bonsai wound healing lore instead of moving ahead with trying to make a bonsai of it. I cut the lower right and upper-left callus on what I arbitrarily called side1 and the opposite way, on the reverse side, side2.
I thought about wrapping damp sphagnum in polyethylene sheeting, just like an air layer, but opted to wrap the sphagnum in raffia instead, and to water the wad every time I watered the tree. My only thought about this was that more gas exchange would be possible with raffia - polyethylene does transmit some oxygen. I really doubt that it matters (but I did have quite a bit of trouble wrapping raffia around sphagnum on this vertical bole compare to a split zip-lock bag - maybe with practice …).
I opened up the package on 31May15. The cuts on side1 were still apparent. They were not obvious on side2. No enhanced growth was evident on either side.
I redid the cuts of the ‘lip’ as before, but this time applied lanolin to both sides and covered them with aluminum foil instead.
I looked at them again on 15Sep15. There was a little growth toward closing the wound on side1
And dramatic growth toward closure of the wound on side 2
I see no indication that cutting the callus does anything productive. I don’t see any indication that keeping it damp/wet or under Aluminum foil really matters either. Both wounds were about as identical as one could ever find and my treatments of them were identical, yet one side, side2, closed dramatically more than side1. It is hard for me to understand why, but it is clear that these things of bonsai lore really didn’t do anything to makes the wounds heal faster.
Regardless, the fact that two shoots/branches at the top of the tree are very nearly opposed is another interesting feature of this ‘stump’. The dieback strips on opposite sides of the bole are, therefore, about as perfectly matched a pair of ‘wounds’ as one will ever find and they are on the same tree!
On 11Mar15 I took this opportunity to test some bonsai wound healing lore instead of moving ahead with trying to make a bonsai of it. I cut the lower right and upper-left callus on what I arbitrarily called side1 and the opposite way, on the reverse side, side2.
I thought about wrapping damp sphagnum in polyethylene sheeting, just like an air layer, but opted to wrap the sphagnum in raffia instead, and to water the wad every time I watered the tree. My only thought about this was that more gas exchange would be possible with raffia - polyethylene does transmit some oxygen. I really doubt that it matters (but I did have quite a bit of trouble wrapping raffia around sphagnum on this vertical bole compare to a split zip-lock bag - maybe with practice …).
I opened up the package on 31May15. The cuts on side1 were still apparent. They were not obvious on side2. No enhanced growth was evident on either side.
I redid the cuts of the ‘lip’ as before, but this time applied lanolin to both sides and covered them with aluminum foil instead.
I looked at them again on 15Sep15. There was a little growth toward closing the wound on side1
And dramatic growth toward closure of the wound on side 2
I see no indication that cutting the callus does anything productive. I don’t see any indication that keeping it damp/wet or under Aluminum foil really matters either. Both wounds were about as identical as one could ever find and my treatments of them were identical, yet one side, side2, closed dramatically more than side1. It is hard for me to understand why, but it is clear that these things of bonsai lore really didn’t do anything to makes the wounds heal faster.
).
