JBP Pine Development [Monroe]
Good to retain some older needles throughout.
The window of time for cutback on black pines is late May to mid July.
If your climate promotes slow growth, you will cut earlier (like SF). If your climate promotes fast growth, you will cut later (like San Jose).
Same for size; if your tree is larger, cut earlier. If your tree is shohin, cut later.
Objective:
To encourage budding back on branches to select new branches, closer to the trunk (to avoid long legs or internodes), cut off high-energy-consuming shoots. Buds may be from retained few needles
Focusing energy to desired tree structure and development
Potential buds may emerge from old wood, but stimulated by the tree feeling the scarcity of foilage that it must push new buds
Debatable: pulling needles by tweezers (often pulling out potential buds) or cutting needles back and leaving the root.
Downside: tree must be healthy, and this will slow down growth
Decandling is number one because it provides an immediate cutback.
But JBP are different than other species cutbacks because we are removing ALL of the new growth instead of leaving a very small amount. You need to start with a healthy tree.
Next, removing extra needles. This seems to be a kind of defoliation. Normally defoliating can weaken your tree (slow down growth). It will preserve density or ramifications by removing excess shading which could cause interior dieback.
Black pines when healthy are some of the strongest trees we work with so all of the weakening techniques and cutbacks seem to tame its apical growing tendencies and promote smaller interior growth.
On old wood you can look for “rings” and flattened buds, looking a little like scales. When stimulated by defoliation and cut-back, look for these patterns and observe if budding emerges these.
