There’s something satisfying about pinching Maples. I only really do this to trees in a refinement phase as it slows growth of the extending shoot and as a result keeps inter-node length short. Its a good technique to add that final tight twiggy-ness to the canopy. As it slows growth you probably dont want to use it on developing trees as it will slow down the rate of growth across the tree.

It’s also not really something that you can do in one hit, rather pinching a number of tips a day as they slowly open giving you a good reason to closely monitor and spend time with a tree over a number of days or even weeks. You have to wait until the first set of leaves opens and the next set just begin to unfold. Then you get in there and remove that shoot tip. The extension of that shoot will slow or stop and hopefully you will get much tighter bud spacing.

If you have a refined Maple, give it a go as the growth flushes out and see how you like the results.