{"id":328,"date":"2013-03-01T22:41:23","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T11:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/?p=328"},"modified":"2023-12-17T07:48:05","modified_gmt":"2023-12-16T20:48:05","slug":"japanese-black-pine-cuttings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/?p=328","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Black Pine Cuttings"},"content":{"rendered":"
For those of you who propagate your own plants here is an interesting new slant on Black pine seedling cuttings.This year I was lucky enough to get some Japanese Black pine seed from Scott in Canberra. Black pine seed is hard to find in Australia since quarantine have restricted the import of seed.\u00a0I have been experimenting with growing black pine cuttings for a number of years with mixed success after reading about commercial grown P. radiata cuttings. The key to success is to use juvenile growth for the cuttings. P. radiata growers prune stock trees to force a flush of juvenile growth that is then set as cuttings giving good success.<\/div>\n

For some time we have been aware of a technique for striking cuttings of very young black pine seedlings by cutting the stem at where it changes to purple and striking the top as a cutting. This is supposed to give better root structure to the resulting plant. I have trialled this but in my opinion the technique is slower, makes more work and the results are no better than using well root pruned seedlings.<\/p>\n

I do, however, routinely prune my black pine seedlings to force low shoots that will give options for branching and can help to thicken the base of the resulting tree. Without early pruning you get a long, thin trunk with no low shoots.<\/p>\n

This year after pruning the seedlings I recognised that the left over tops were the ultimate in juvenile pine growth and decided to test the rooting ability. The results were very good as shown in the step by step pics below.<\/p>\n

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JBP seedlings<\/p><\/div>\n

Typical Japanese Black Pine seedlings at a couple of months old.<\/p>\n

Timing is not critical.<\/p>\n

Cuttings can be taken from pine seedlings whenever the seedling is tall enough to give a cutting long enough to handle and right through to when the adult, paired needles develop.<\/p>\n

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Chop the tops<\/p><\/div>\n

The tops of the seedlings are cut with sharp scissors. Provided I leave some healthy green needles those stems will produce new buds and continue to grow.<\/p>\n

Low shoots are very useful in pines so chopping the seedlings is a valuable tool even if you don’t intend to make cuttings.<\/p>\n

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Typical JBP juvenile growth cuttings<\/p><\/div>\n

Typical JBP seedling stem cuttings.<\/p>\n

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Strip lower leaves<\/p><\/div>\n

Strip the lower foliage as you would for most cuttings.<\/p>\n

Note the cutting with intact terminal bud on the right. Where the seedlings are taller I can sometimes get 2 pieces from the stem. Cutting on the left is from the lower section and doesn’t have a terminal bud but still has a good chance of producing roots and new buds from the remaining needles.<\/p>\n

The prepared cuttings are now dipped in rooting hormone. I get good results with Clonex gel but rooting hormone in any form should give good results. I have not tried other treatments so if you prefer to use honey or any of the other alternative root promoting substances please let us know how they work with pines. It would also be interesting to hear how these JBP cuttings root without any treatment.<\/p>\n

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Community pot of JBP cuttings<\/p><\/div>\n

The cuttings are now potted up in standard propagating mix.<\/p>\n

They will now go into the cutting bed under automatic misting until roots form. If you don’t have misting you should still get good results by covering the cuttings with a plastic bag, PET bottle or any standard humidity control options.<\/p>\n

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After some weeks the cuttings are still healthy.<\/p>\n

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Roots showing at drain holes<\/p><\/div>\n

Roots are now emerging from the drain holes in the pots so it is clear the cuttings are successful.<\/p>\n

These are now ready to pot on into individual pots.<\/p>\n

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The results<\/p><\/div>\n

Only 3 of these cuttings have failed to produce roots. They can be discarded but if I put them back in fresh propagating mix and back in the misting bed they will often produce roots in a few more weeks.<\/p>\n

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Roots at a range of stages<\/p><\/div>\n

I usually get a range of root developments. Some have lots of roots, some just a few. Some will have long roots while others have just started and have shorter roots.<\/p>\n

New roots on cuttings are fragile so handle with care at this stage to avoid breaking the new roots off the stems.<\/p>\n

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Cut roots short.<\/p><\/div>\n

The rooted cuttings can be potted on with roots intact but to enhance the future nebari even more I often cut the new roots short. Cutting roots at this stage will produce more root ramification from the cut ends and often stimulate more roots from the stem.<\/p>\n

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Rooted cuttings potted on.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The final result. A new batch of JBP ready to grow on into potential bonsai.<\/div>\n
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Some additional notes on pine cuttings:<\/div>\n
This technique works on all the pines I have tried it with.<\/div>\n
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Additional cuttings can be obtained from the rooted cuttings as they grow on. Cuttings are still successful while the stems have juvenile foliage which is usually up to a year and even longer when the tops are trimmed regularly.<\/div>\n
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Occasionally an older JBP will produce juvenile shoots after pruning. Portions of those shoots can be used as cuttings even though the tree is older. The key is juvenile growth, not the actual age of the tree.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those of you who propagate your own plants here is an interesting new slant on Black pine seedling cuttings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-propagation","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3017,"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/3017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shibuibonsai.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}