What is this?

[TomV]

Good morning,

 

I have recently had two Acer platanoides 'Crimson Sentry' trees planted and today is the first time i’ve had an opportunity to have a quick look at them.

 

I have noticed that both have the below and just wondering if anyone can tel me what it is?

 

The blue in one of them appears to be an elastic band.

 

Thank you in advance

[Rough Hewn]

Grafting point.[emoji106]

[Stubby]

Grafted onto different root stock .

 

Rough in first !

Edited October 31, 2020 by Stubby

[Steve Bullman]

That has to be the worst grafting i've seen in a while, I would have rejected them personally.

[derek robinson]

Send them back!! Disgraceful.

[Gnarlyoak]

As advised by others, your pictures do appear to show grafting points. But yours do appear to be rather poor examples, particularly the example with the blue elastic band trapped in the callousing.

Both appear to be showing symptoms of what is referred to as "overgrowth" (substantial thickening) at, above, or below the graft union and can be a sign of graft failure. Link here to the RHS website which describes the problem your trees appear to be exhibiting:-

Graft failure

WWW.RHS.ORG.UK

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Many woody ornamentals and most fruit trees are propagated by grafting. Sometimes the graft union fails, resulting in the main stem breaking off, dieback, poor growth or death of the...

 

Best course of action would be to contact whoever supplied & planted the trees to replace them. They were wrong to accept them in that condition from the grower, and doubly wrong to try and fob them off on an unsuspecting customer!

Good luck.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Gnarlyoak