This article first appeared on the ABBA website in 2004, it has since been updated and edited...click on the photos for larger images
Returning
back to my tree, air
layering seems like a good answer to the problems it has, but where and
how? The tree is 67
cm tall which is
neither here nor there, to be “chuhin” size it must
be less than 45 cm tall, so
that is the main consideration. There
is
a branch about 50 cm up from the present bottom which is coming out
towards the
front. This could
possibly used as the
new crown, or if not a new one could be made from a shoot coming from
it. In terms of the
bottom of the tree, the “tachiagari”
is the most important thing to consider.
This is the distance from the nebari to the first branch. As the trunk is straight th
ere
is no
direction or movement to think about, just the physical distance.
There
is however a need to
know the approximate diameter of the trunk as the distance between the
upper
and lower extremes of the cut must be at least one and a half times the
diameter. The first
cut is made at the top,
where the new roots will come out from.
The
second cut is made at a distance of about
70 mm down from the first. It
is very
important to use a sharp knife for this process, it makes life easier
and
having a clean cut will increase the chances of root development. Cut as deep as you can
with the knife, it
will quite easily pass through the living part of the tree and stop at
the hard
wood core. One thing to take care with is that you cut in a straight
line
across the tree, don’t go skew-whiff or it will make it more
difficult to get
even nebari in the future. Of
the two, the
most important is the upper cut as this will be where the roots will
come out
from, the bottom can be less careful.
This
must be clean and even, it will callus over so a clean cut will result
in a
clean callus, which means nice, unscarred nebari.
After cutting both the top and bottom, cut a vertical line between then two lines as shown...
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You can then peel off the top cambium layer easily.
