AlainK

I had this wild apple tree (malus sylvatic in a flower pot for several years, i put it in a very shallow plqtic pot for two years, but there was a lack of a branch on the left side.

I made a cut just above a dormant bud; sometimes, it is just "somewhere" in a line on the bark that marks the previous season's growth.

18 April 2008:





20 July 2008:
Wow! I had never thouight it could grow like that in 3 month's time; I partly defoliated it, and wired it a wee bit, to take advantage of this flush of growth. I had put about 20% "active carbon" (the kind of stuff used to filter aquariums) and fertilized it, but quite midly : chemical liquid fertilizer for indoor plants evry 3 weeks.



27 October 2008:

I had let the new branch and the top grow freely...



...and cut them before all the leaves fell:


9 november 2008 :
Put it in a deeper pot to make it thrive some more. Wrapped the roots so as to make them fuse more closely.




A long way to Kokufu, but still, I'm learning and I like it

It's from a seed gathered from a wild apple tree in the forest, sawn some 10-12 years ago.
I had a couple from the same stock that stayed in the ground and that were about 2 metres high (6 ft 7 in) but this one is 20-25 cm high (< 10 in).

Takes a long (loooong) time to bear flowers when in the ground (8-10 yrs), so I hope my kids will see the yellow fruit on that potted one before they are my age....

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Alain K.
http://www.rdb45.fr
http://ak2.apinc.org/bdB

Salvelinus

Wow, that's terrific. So, to see if I understand correctly, you made a horizontal cut into the bark just above a dormant bud, seen in the second photo? Great technique, and it makes sense. Cut the flow of auxins that are inhibiting that bud from above by severing the vasculature that is carrying them. By the time the cut heals over, the bud is growing strongly and presumably a bit more vertical, which would reduce sensitivity to the auxins.

I'm going to use that in the near future. Thank you very much for posting!

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Namaste,

--Scott ><>

"There seems to be no survivors to interview, but I suspect [kamikaze pilots] did not shout 'traytree' the moment before their personal sacrifice." --Herb Gustafson

shaggybirdman

ok i'm a bit lost. the cut above the dormant bud did what? make the bud open? i tried to see what that bud did, but not sure if it made a branch. please explain more what the cut did.

shaggybirdman

Scott

i didn't see your post before mine, but i'm still a bit lost. did the cut make the bud open?

AlainK

Yes, that's exactly how Salvelinus described the process: the branch on the left didn't exist in April, and was almost as long as the leader in October.

It works with deciduous trees, more or less, depending on the species.

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Alain K.
http://www.rdb45.fr
http://ak2.apinc.org/bdB

shaggybirdman

have you, or anyone for that matter done this with a maple?

Salvelinus

You can be sure I'm going to be doing it. I just whacked a 30 inch tall, 5 inch diameter trident down to a bare trunk.

Thanks again, Alain!

__________________
Namaste,

--Scott ><>

"There seems to be no survivors to interview, but I suspect [kamikaze pilots] did not shout 'traytree' the moment before their personal sacrifice." --Herb Gustafson

AlainK

Yes, shaggybirdman, I've done it on a field maple and on Japanese maples.

Here, the dormant bud was apparently dry but still visible, so it was easy to know where to make the cut. On rather young branches, it's also easier because you can still see a difference in the structure of the bark, or "lines" that represent the former years' growth.

It's more difficult to choose where to make a cut on thick trunks, and the scar resuting from a cut in a thick bark takes of course longer to disappear.

This is a photo of a blunder I made : this was my first try to make an approch grafting to have a branch when one was missing in the design of this fiels maple. It failed because I didn't do it the proper way, but if you have a look at the picture closely, you can see that two sets of new branches grew on either sides of the lower cut:

The stupid thing I did in April 2005 :


January 2007 : you can still see the nasty scar, but it's at the back of the tree, and thanks to the new branches, it's healing rather quickly :



So yes, thanks to this unvoluntary experience, I can say it works on field maples too, even on a rather thick trunk (here, about 7-8 cm in diameter where the branches appeared)

I've just edited the post because when looking at the photo there is a good illustration about what I wrote about "horizontal growth lines": I circled in red where there were dormant buds. Had I just made a cut above them, I would have saved the tree such a disfiguration...

Attached Images

acerc01_050418d2.jpg (73.4 KB, 12 views)

__________________
Alain K.
http://www.rdb45.fr
http://ak2.apinc.org/bdB

anttal63

love your work alain, you are on fire of late! thanks for a great technique.

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Antonio......
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shaggybirdman

i don't see the buds in question, but how do i locate them? i mean what am i looking for?

also would that make a branch out of all the buds come spring if i were to do this to all of the buds?