Good question!
I'm dealing with the same thing.
See Thread linked below --
Does my maple look like your maple?

Josh

Here is a link that might be useful: Potted Maple - ID please

Tridents, although northern hardy, will experience some die-back in winter. This will happen on some of the new growth due to moisure dissication in the coldest driest winter months. With any tree it's always better to allow vertical growth until the desired trunk size (girth) is reached. This will happen a lot faster if vertical growth is allowed--then simply make the cut to establish the new apex.

You may just have a weaker tree, our field grown ones would bud back like crazy in the spring.

Most cultivars of trident maples are very vigorous trees - genetically. If you're having difficulty with the vitality of your tree, you really need to look first to the cultural conditions you're forcing your tree to deal with and that are holding your tree back. First though, you need to be sure it's not just your own impatience. You have to realize that big trunks don't just happen overnight. When you're working with trees, eventually you'll come to the realization you're on 'tree time', and your efforts at of 'hurrying things along' don't work on trees as well as they do on kids, driving, or other projects aside from bonsai. ;o)

The odds are there's a problem with the soil/watering habits relationship, but it could be other issues as well. Isolate the problem area(s) and correct t get your tree back on track. A very large container, a very fast soil, and a nutrition supplementation program the tree favors are the keys to developing a trunk as quickly as possible in a container .... OH, and good light, too.

It doesn't matter from a growth perspective that the tip died back, but if not winter injury, you should be wondering why? Over-watering/poor soil, over-fertilizing, mechanical injury ....?

Pruning isn't going to invigorate growth. It only changes where the trees energy is allocated and actually slows growth, which. in the end is simply a measurement of the increase in biomass.

Nurseries top their trees to reduce the size of the canopy (stops blow-overs/toppling) and to stimulate back-budding (bushiness).

Al

I am going to chalk this up to my impatience and the fact that the tree is potted. It is after all a second year seedling and the pot is probably only a 2 gallon. I think I will up-pot it to a 5 gallon just so the soil can have better equalization and less chance of my watering being the problem. The soil is basic potting soil with some sand and other grit to loosen it up. I water often but never too heavily. I probably error to the wet side but for how much rain we have had lately I surely had not been over doing it.

I will not cut any of the tree for several years if I can. Thickening is what I want so vertical growth it is.

greenman28, Your tree does look very much like mine. In my inexperience I would say yours is likely a Trident. However I have collected a Red maple whose juvenile leaves are also similar. Per the other thread there are suggestions of maples that I don't know anything about.

Whoa there! Potting into a 5 gal container is MORE likely to bring root rot issues unless the soil is VERY fast. That means you'll need to sift the particles & make sure that everything is around 3/32+ and there is no dust. Watering often but not heavily is a good way to ensure that soluble salts from fertilizer AND irrigation water builds in the soil. An accumulation of solubles in the soil makes it increasingly difficult for the plant to absorb water and the nutrients dissolved in water as the level of solutes in the soil solution increases.

The very best advice I can offer you is to start studying about soils and plant physiology. You need to know how to keep your plant material healthy and viable year after year, not just month to month, if your bonsai efforts are to end in pleasurable reward rather than frustration. Over the years, I have seen many, many people become enamored of the little trees, only to give up after a year or so, thwarted because they couldn't/wouldn't pay the dues of learning how to keep their trees viable.

Al

While I do have some more learning to do about soil and plant physiology I am no stranger to growing plants in containers. I can see where that came off as the newbie "Putting it in a bigger pot is better" but that is not the case. I am not over potting the tree. If this tree does not like the change then I will know why. Once again it was purchased as a learning tree.

By putting the tree in a larger container you are also taking it in the ideal direction for developing it...putting it in the ground for the first five years or so. While the larger container isn't really the same any tree I developed in the ground or in a large training box came along faster and grew more vigorously. Finally putting a tree in a Bonsai pot is the end rather than the beginning, getting it to that point can take years.

Bob