Trident trunk thickening question

[Robertji]

Hi, I have a number of trident whips in the ground to thicken up the trunks. I just read on Peter Tea's Blog that for branch bases to thicken you need to remove side branches and only keep the terminal branch. Is that the same with trunks? Should i prune off all side branches in favour of only one vertical trunk. Thanks, Jim

 

[bonsaibp]

I wouldn't cut anything. When the first part of the trunk is the size you want then cut until then let it grow.

 

[nathanbs]

Hi, I have a number of trident whips in the ground to thicken up the trunks. I just read on Peter Tea's Blog that for branch bases to thicken you need to remove side branches and only keep the terminal branch. Is that the same with trunks? Should i prune off all side branches in favour of only one vertical trunk. Thanks, Jim

i think something was lost in translation because whether you are thickening a branch or a trunk the more juice you have flowing the faster its going to thicken. The more branches and leaves the more juice.

 

[Poink88]

i think something was lost in translation because whether you are thickening a branch or a trunk the more juice you have flowing the faster its going to thicken. The more branches and leaves the more juice.

I agree. I actually cut the main trunk/branch early on just to induce more branching to feed that trunk/branch. It is a sacrifice but in the end you get thicker trunk/branch faster that way.

 

[Smoke]

Side branches add girth, but it is a double edged sword. If branches are allowed to thicken at the same rate it will create huge bulges on the trunk that make it look funny. I think what Peter is talking about by removing side branches on branches is to create smooth taper.

Notice on this field grown trident how the trunk has bulged everyplace a branch was allowed to thicken at the same time the trunk grew. It looks like a stack of donuts. It will take a few years for this to even out, and it will to some extent, but it will always have bulges.

 

[Smoke]

What people have to understand about all the blogs on the net currently written from all the wonderful people apprenticeing in Japan is that these people are working on professional bonsai trees. The blogs and techniques they write about are what they are doing on what they have to work whith there, which may be a hundred times better than what anyone here can work on. When Peter, for instance, talks about a technique on a trident he is currently working on, he may never see the results of his work. It may be the results that some other apprentice five years from now will see.

I remember on a blog post from Peter about a pine he repotted and that Mario Komsta replied that he had worked on the tree several years earlier.

What many of the current blogs are missing, and that is just due that we did not have blogs ten years ago to archive what was done then. Ten years from now, if the world is not shattered from WWIII, we may have a good archive of work to learn from.

In the mean time, apply these techniques to what you have, just don't count on recieving the same results.

 

[Robertji]

Thanks Smoke. Certainly true considering my skill level is currently just trying to keep things from dying. Dare to dream though. Jim

 

[fore]

funny/strange, I heard the same thing for sacrificial branches. To strip it of all leaves exc. the terminal branch, so it thickens the trunk without taking too much energy from the rest of the tree.

 

[Poink88]

funny/strange, I heard the same thing for sacrificial branches. To strip it of all leaves exc. the terminal branch, so it thickens the trunk without taking too much energy from the rest of the tree.

One theory I have for that is to have the sacrificial branch out of the way and not block any sunlight from the "actual" tree. Again, I may be mistaken.

 

[Dan W.]

http://peterteabonsai.wordpress.com/2013/08/13/the-trident-maple/

Here's the blog post in question.

He does clearly state that he is trying to thicken the base of a branch and that allowing forking branches further out on the sacrifice will slow thickening at the base. I have no experience with this, but I'm not ready to discount his theory either.

I don't know how this would apply to a trident in the ground either.

 

[KennedyMarx]

One theory I have for that is to have the sacrificial branch out of the way and not block any sunlight from the "actual" tree. Again, I may be mistaken.

I reckon that's why people growing out Japanese black pine strip the needles along the sacrifice branch leaving a few near the growing tip.

 

[iant]

I read his blog a week back. He has lots of useful stuff there. When I read it I thought to myself that there's no way that's a true statement. I still feel that way. It may be that it's smoother to have the base branches not participate but there's just no way that the thickness of a trunk is not going to be proportional to the growth and amount of all of the distal foliage. It's hard to get around basic science. Al's probably right that it's an evenness issue. If the very base branches are responsible for too much of the growth then you can see some flaring of the veins that serves them and the growth won't be as rounded.
Ian

 

[nathanbs]

i take it back. If something was lost in translation it wasnt by the OP it may have been from Peter or someone who taught this to Peter, unless im wrong altogether. Is there any support or anybodies personal experience to support this? Like Dario said it is common to trim lower branches off of sacrifice limbs to prevent shading out of the keeper branches and active buds.

 

[nathanbs]

I read his blog a week back. He has lots of useful stuff there. When I read it I thought to myself that there's no way that's a true statement. I still feel that way. It may be that it's smoother to have the base branches not participate but there's just no way that the thickness of a trunk is not going to be proportional to the growth and amount of all of the distal foliage. It's hard to get around basic science. Al's probably right that it's an evenness issue. If the very base branches are responsible for too much of the growth then you can see some flaring of the veins that serves them and the growth won't be as rounded.
Ian

That isnt what Peter said though he said "I went through these branches and cut off all the competition and kept only the center branch. By doing this, the terminal branch will grow faster and quicken the thickening of its base." Not that it helps create even taper. Theres no two ways about it. If you need a branch to thicken you let it grow unrestrained. It will not create a bulge on the trunk unless it let it grow disproportionately large, then you blew in more ways than one. If taper is what you want then you have to chop back and regrow new nodes

 

[Smoke]

That isnt what Peter said though he said "I went through these branches and cut off all the competition and kept only the center branch. By doing this, the terminal branch will grow faster and quicken the thickening of its base." Not that it helps create even taper. Theres no two ways about it. If you need a branch to thicken you let it grow unrestrained. It will not create a bulge on the trunk unless it let it grow disproportionately large, then you blew in more ways than one. If taper is what you want then you have to chop back and regrow new nodes

But we , at least I, am talking about growing a trunk. I want all the branches off when I grow a trident trunk, leaving just one leader.

 

[nathanbs]

But we , at least I, am talking about growing a trunk. I want all the branches off when I grow a trident trunk, leaving just one leader.

that will only work with shohin in my opinion. On larger trees you need true taper not just an illusion of taper created by chop and grow. That needs to be done by very careful use of sacrifice branches. When you grow using one leader you grow a cylinder without taper. Im assuming you chop low and resume with a new leader that becomes another cylinder so on and so forth. The problem I see is that even if each one of these segments is only 1" long/tall it is still a cylinder without any diminishing proportion. I realize that I'm being picky and that i grow branches more or less just as you recommend but that's because the skinnier the trunk/branch the less obvious it is to see the lack of taper.

 

[nathanbs]

But we , at least I, am talking about growing a trunk. I want all the branches off when I grow a trident trunk, leaving just one leader.

Do you recommend removing all lateral branches on this one leader or let them grow unrestrained. If you remove them where do you draw the line?