What effects the number of cymes?

This year (year three or four for most of my potted trees) my trees seem to be producing many more cymes than ever before. Is there any specific nutrient that might make that happen?

This year I went a little different route on fertilizing.

I placed about 1-2 inches of new soil/compost in each pot. I used E.B. Stone’s Paydirt that contains fir bark, redwood compost, chicken manure, mushroom compost, earthworm castings, pumice stone, bat guano, feather meal and kelp meal. As well as mycorrhizae and humic acids.

I sprinkled a dusting of Azomite on top of the dirt and a couple weeks later I added a small amount of granulated potassium magnesium sulfate 18/11/22 as well.

I don’t recall ever seeing so many clusters of cymes before, but I’ve only been growing maples for 4-5 yrs now, so maybe these are normal and previous years were the abnormal ones.

I’ve attached a few pictures to show the cyme production. The first is Kihachijo, Purple Ghost, Sango Kaku, and Dancing Peacock.

 

There was a Thread from last year called "more freeze>more flower??" Here is a link to the original post: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/forums/showthread.php?p=292345#post292345

Here is what I came up with then and posted, after doing a little research:

 

Thanks for the info JT1. We did have the harshest winter I've seen here since 89, many nights under freezing - which virtually never happens. Maybe that had an effect on them.

 

Going to bump this thread a little... Though this is only my second spring with my maples, I too have noticed numerous flowers on several of my trees - Hana matoi, Manyo no sato, Tsukushigata, etc. Since this past winter (though is it really past? calling for overnight freezing temps AGAIN for a couple nights this week!) was so much colder as compared to the previous one, I too am wondering if this is a significant factor in flower production. The large silver maples and pin oaks in the yard have also produced copious amounts of flowers, etc, this spring. I'm expecting the cottonwoods will also produce large amounts of fuzz later on; thank goodness I don't suffer from allergies...