We have acquired the services of Dr. Maxim Kapralov who is a senior lecturer in plant science at Newcastle university. However , it is important to point out that Maxim stresses that, although interested in bonsai, he actually knows nothing about them, he also was at pains to point out that neither would he describe himself as an expert on trees, other types of plant are his thing. He does however, have an understanding of plant functions, such as photosynthesis, osmosis, etc. etc. at level far deeper than we either need or could understand. It is up to us as individual bonsai growers to apply the better understanding that we expect to get to our trees so as to achieve better results. We already have a list of more than 20 questions that have been submitted by regulars who have requested the day, we will work through these before opening out the session to questions from the floor. I hope this makes sense. We expect the day to go from approximately 10.00 am. to 3.00 pm. We need to know numbers because the nursery will provide refreshments including a snack lunch. Dr. Kapralov has refused any payment for his services, which is very generous of him, however, there will be a nominal charge for the refreshments and facilities. We want the day to be organised but informal so I will act as a chairman and will be concerned not to accept questions too specifically tree or bonsai related that might put the guy on the spot. Below is a link to Maxim’s staff profile.

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/nes/staff/profile/maximkapralov.html#background