Lime epicormic growth

[sloth]

I've wondered in the past, and would like others thoughts/opinions/experiences on this...

Why do some lime trees have abundant epicormic growth at the base, and others none? Is it indicative of stress, or to provide carbs for reactive growth to compensate decay?

Also, how do you go about checking for K. deusta when the growth is so thick? Or just not look unless there are symptoms within the crown?

... so many questions, so little time!

[Wolfie]

Just different species. The one with abundant sprouts is the Common Lime (Tilia x europaea). Without could be Tilia cordata.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Just different species. The one with abundant sprouts is the Common Lime (Tilia x europaea). Without could be Tilia cordata.

 

as above, as for the kretz, it will produce dead stirps of cabium in late stages, so if epi from that cambium dies, ask questions

[sloth]

Thank you. And another...

...when removing the epicormic where do you cut to? I've different instructions from bosses and TO's in the past. Some like hand saw target cuts up to the trunk, some just close to the trunk as you dare with a chain saw. Surely this is just cosmetic, and the tree grows it for a reason, ie leave alone when possible. I must admit I tend to favour 'close as possible' with chain saw, however I do like to be neat when I have the time!

[chilli]

One of my annual jobs is to trim the base & side growth from an avenue of limes at the local cemetery. 24 trees, all planted at the same time, from the same stock. Some, lots of base growth, others none!

Silky & Felco's for me. When I used a chainsaw a couple of years ago I was taken to task by the tree man who had 'topped' them in earlier years.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

All growth removed should be done to accepted arboricultural methods ie branch collar, secateurs should be more than capable of doing a nice clean cut on suckers.

 

The trouble with using a chansaw or even a silky is scaring the cambium which just encourages more shoots

[RobArb]

Time to get my own back tony:lol:

 

Didn't know you could go about scaring:biggrin: the bark:lol:

 

Thought it was scarring the bark when you went near it with a chainsaw:001_rolleyes:

 

Sent from Rob's GalaxySII

[APC]

So what's the reason why Tilia x europaea bungs out so much basal growth? Is it a survival strategy? I've noticed at my place that 3 that we felled possibly 20 years ago have regrown basically as coppiced trees. The stumps have all hollowed right out (and become useful for geocaching sites). It seems to me, and I'm probably totally wrong, that they do not compartmentalise well but insist on persisting through their vigorous regrowth?

[Dan Earp]

secateurs and silky would be fine to take right back

[agg221]

I know this is an old thread, but something I've wondered.

 

In apples, you often get epicormic buds breaking if you heavily reduce. Sometimes these break on the trunk which you want to keep permanently clear. The shoots break from a single bud, but grow a basal cluster of new, latent buds, so if you cut them off you get these new buds breaking and it gets worse.

 

One old technique for dealing with this is to wait until the wood is hardening (around July) and then run the back of a billhook sharply down the trunk to knock them out rather than cutting them. It rips the whole base of the shoot clear, and although it creates a larger wound than a cut it's still only about a quarter of an inch across and heals quickly. It doesn't rip into the old bark as the shoot is still too small and soft, and weakly attached. By removing the basal cluster of buds, the epicormic growth doesn't readily occur from the same point.

 

I've used this on apples for about 25yrs with good results. I wondered whether anyone had any thoughts on its potential effectiveness on other species, such as limes?

 

Alec