layering technique bonsai

good day
Excuse my English. I wonder what is your experience with strangulation branches longer than a year before layering? or again strangulation in place of the bulge? Thus arises whether a better result? You have already tried layering the older larger pine trunk?
Thank you very much in advance for your reply


Martin

Martin Havránek wrote:good day
Excuse my English. I wonder what is your experience with strangulation branches longer than a year before layering? or again strangulation in place of the bulge? Thus arises whether a better result? You have already tried layering the older larger pine trunk?

"Strangulation" with a wire is a good way to make a flare at the base of the explant. You can simply wrap it in damp sphagnum moss wrapped in plastic - it will eventually grow roots. However, if you do not want to wait for 3 or 4 years, remove the wire after a year and cut a ring of bark around the branch, in the swelling. Then, "wrap it up".

Note that if it is a vertical branch you can cut a pot, put in around the girdle, and fill with bonsai medium instead of using spagnum wrapped in plastic - this will produce stronger roots

thank you
Do you think that if you strangle it again as shown. A new, larger bulge?
thank you

Caution: That might be a gall or maybe the spot where a borer has entered the tree. When this happens it could kill everything above it. I have had that happen to a couple of trees. It can take 2 or 3 years to kill it.
But maybe air layering it will allow it to grow its own roots and live. I don't know about that, but it's worth a try.

Martin Havránek wrote:thank you
Do you think that if you strangle it again as shown. A new, larger bulge?
thank you

Yes, you will get more bulging with another strangling. But below the wire, the branch does not thicken (from the wire down to the next branch/foliage below). Most of the bulging happens in the first year it is strangled.

Ultimately the tree will clog up the xylem that supplies the mineral and water to the branch above the strangle and the branch above will die. Different species take different lengths of time to kill the branch above. With Japanese maples it can be as soon as the next year; it can be longer than 5 years with hornbeams, for examples.

However, until that happens, the bulge will continue getting bigger and will either grow roots or will grow over the strangle/girdle.