Japanese (and other Asian) maples are by nature understory trees and are accustomed to a part shade location. "Ideally", a situation that provided morning sun and afternoon shade is a preferred location, avoiding the more intense and hotter late afternoon sun. However, most red leafed maples can tolerate a great deal of sun without issues, provided all other growing requirements are met. Given the two locations outlined above and the size of the tree now, I'd not be too inclined to move it - it will be far less stressful and better for long term growth to leave in place. A JM with a 2-2.5" diameter trunk is a good sized tree and will not transplant easily. And you certainly do not want to comtemplate doing so now - if you must move, wait until dormancy.

My ovata is in full winter sun (up here in the north) and does well, in summer it gets to go outside in morning sun. my afra gets "shaded" winter sun (under sun reflective coated glass) and then out with the ovata in summer. Both do well, so maybe like cactusmcharris says, it doesn't make a difference.

Here again, what you have demonstrated confirms what I have been talking about and you have proven the so-called expert (saying that you need 10 t0 12 hours of sun) WRONG No one ever said that. And except for you, everyone else understood what was actually said. Shelia - as michael explained very well there is a variance in internode length from variety to variety and type to type. There are "averages" determined by studies done on many of the common varieties but the usual way of evaluating it is to measure the difference between the internodes on the plant itself as it grows. With an indeterminate variety when it is provided with ideal growing conditions and ample light they will each remain approx. the same length, have the same spacing, as the plant grows. With insufficient light each internode markedly lengthen as the stem grows. Now I think we have inundated the poor OP, who asked a simple question, with enough emails since this thread was ripped way off topic. I'm done. Dave

Fred, The theory is based on Daily Light Integral - the total amount of light that a plant gets in a day. Sort of like using a rain gauge to determine not how hard it is raining but how rain we get from a shower. But in this case, it is the amount of PAR light, light in the 400-700 nm range. This link provides the amount of light needed for various greenhouse plants. This is to grow to maturity, not seedlings. On Page 4 of this page the formula for calculating moles (or mols) per day is provided. I've measured bright sunlight in summer with my meter and I get about 110,000 - 120,000 lux. Going with 100,000 lux, that's about 9300 foot candles. Multiply that by .000718 gives you 6.67 mols per hour. This is the scientific aspect but the anecdotal part is that I had tomato plants growing in my GH this winter that did nothing except get very leggy until I started getting about five hours of direct light a day. Even then, it was filtered a bit by plastic. But I had hundreds of blooms and now have bunches and bunches of toms. Eaten some, some are almost ready to eat and others will not be ripe for a month or more! Mike