There’s a storm of confusion around these two techniques…and it’s one of those things we don’t want to get wrong. Pines take a couple years to get back on track, once off track, and so they make us look at our mistakes for a long time.

I’ll try to make this short and sweet. For starters, how do we distinguish decandling from breaking/pinching?

Breaking/Pinching means taking part of the shoot off, usually with fingers, as the shoot is extending in early to mid-spring. This is before the needles have come out.

Scots pine candles, before pinching.

With the fleshy part of the fingers, pinch the candle according to its strength, taking more off for stronger ones, less for weaker, none for weakest.

Right candle pinched approximately in half.

Left candle pinched.

Decandling means cutting off the entire pine candle off in late spring. Often the new needles have come out already.