reverse taper

[badabing888]

Hi All,

I have a JBP i've been letting grow out with trim and grow in a grow bag and the top 2 inch's has been covered in mulch / soil over the good 2 year period.

It seems to have inhibited the growth of bark in the park covered by heavy mulch.

once this is uncovered will this grow out over time?

[Haydenmc]

hard to tell, but that looks more like a graft point - is it a cork bark or some other variety?

H

[badabing888]

hmmm it might be but i doubt it due to the grower i got it from originally.

Its strait Japanese Black Pine not a cork bark

I'll try get a better look this evening + photo

[Bonsaitrees (Craig)]

It's not Japanese red pine is it? that place grafts red pine to black pine stock.
Theres only 1 place you would buy pines like that in perth and all the stock is like that. save your pennies and look for another outlet.

[badabing888]

Narr it's not japanese red pine it's black pine wel everything points to this

Hmmmm, the other i have got haven't had this issue which is why i'm asking

[Guy]

failed ground layer?

[badabing888]

here is a few other better quality pics as i've removed the soil / mulch from around the base it's started to dry out and resemble a similar color to the rest of the tree / bark.

photo 1.JPG

photo 2.JPG

it doesn't look like it was ground layered but that may be the only way forward at some stage.

how can i easily identify a red pine over a black pine?

hope these help a bit more i really should have taken a much better look when i got it.....

[Jag01]

over time there is a chance this will grow out, this type of inhibited growth ofter happens when doing air layering as well.

There may be a couple of things you can do in an effort to rectify this reverse taper. First I would give it a few months of sunlight for the bark to harden and recover a little, then you could start to work on the reverse taper portion of the trunk.

A couple of methods that you could try to repair the reverse taper, you could cut some virtical slit around the trunk in the area where the trunk diameter is smaller in diameter, these should be space evenly around the trunk. This will cause the trunk to repair itself in these areas and callous over, you could then repeat the process a number of time each time cut between where the previous cuts were place.

Another method I have heard used to to lightly hammer the area of the trunk that you want to swell with a blunt object. The concept is that this will bruise the bark and the cambium layer underneath and ounce again the trunk will callous to repair itself, therebye increasing the diameter of the trunk in that area.

Another method that could be used is to tightly wrap wire around the trunk in the lower area and allow the wire to cut in very slightly as the trunk grows, then remove the wire before it cuts in too deeply to permanently scar the trunk and repeat the process again.

I have used the first two methods and am continuing to do so with some slow degree of sucess. I will try and post a pic of the one of the trees I experimenting on. I have edited and added the pics, in the area of reverse taper can be clearly seen just below the lower left branch, this reverse taper was caused by a relatively agressive trunk chop (which is at the back of the tree) which cause the area where the trunk chope was performed to swell as it calloused over. The trunk chop area is nearly completely healed and now hopefully I can slowly address the reverse taper issue. As pictured now I would estimate I have improved the area below the bulge in the trunk a good 30%.

regards,

Jeff

[shibui]

I believe what has happened here is the outer (dead) corky layers of bark that were below mulch level have rotted, just leaving the live bark layer. i have had this happen several times with corky bark Chinese elms. With them the best solution was to rub off the outer layers of bark above that area to even up the trunk taper. The corky bark layers will develop again (in time) as the tree grows.

[badabing888]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

@Jag01, yeh i was aware of these sorts of techniques as well i was hoping i could actively not have to use any of them and that it would grow out. Lets see how it goes its still a few years off going into a bonsai pot anyway so there is not rush on it but indeed i may end up trying the hammering technique and worse case ground layer it.

@shibu thanks this really is what it looks like as the bark above is quite flakey , i'm going to remove the bark back in that area as see what i have it looks more like a bark issue then the actual trunk swelling in that area. I'll give it a good rub on saturday