Originally Posted by bonsaikc

There's a good reason that Dave DeGroot is the Pacific Rim Collection Curator. I've been on the receiving end when asking him a question, and you almost wish you had the video going. It was from him that I first learned that "perched water tables in bonsai pots" is a fallacy.

I'm just going to hide behind the fact that this is the reasoning I've been taught, and the results show, as John mentioned, that taking off the cakes after candling does keep the needles from extending as much. One of the things I have come to trust is Boon's results, and therefore his advice. If that opens up a new can of worms around here, so be it, but I have never seen anyone get the kind of results he gets in the time frame he gets in, even allowing for a longer growing season. His methods works, and he didn't invent most of them. They come from decades of experience and teachers before him.

The pont is that I am no horticulturist and not much of a scientist. Nor do I want to take the time to do double-blind studies and read mountains of research. I want to grow trees and get the fastest results possible.