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nafex - Re: [nafex] Grafting - nurse limbs and apical dominance

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  • From: Jerry Lehman <jwlehman@aol.com>
  • To: mailing list at ibiblio - Northamerican Allied Fruit Experimenters <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] Grafting - nurse limbs and apical dominance
  • Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 23:06:00 -0400


If I were doing it I would cut them off. My 2nd choice would be to cut the tips off to reduce the apical dominance affect. I suspect if you pulled them over horizontally they would send up a lot of "rain shoots" in the long run reducing the energy to the graft.

Jerry

On 4/19/2015 3:32 PM, Elizabeth Hilborn wrote:
I am grafting to apple and pear rootstock suckers. The original grafted trees are gone. Last year I stripped off growth on the shoots arising below the graft, but had no takes. This year, I selected suckers with side shoots which I left to use as nurse limbs in the hope that increased shoot vigor would give me better results.

Question- some of the nurse limb apices are higher than the apical shoot of the graft. I have only found one source that suggests that one does not prune the nurse limb until the graft takes. But I am afraid that the apical dominance effect of the nurse limb will prevent my grafts from taking. My only thought is to 'split the difference' - to tie nurse limbs down horizontally.

Does anyone have experience with this issue?

Betsy Hilborn





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