Lime epicormic growth

[HCR]

This is quite interesting:

The clones of common lime.pdf

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

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?

 

I've always assumed it was just the downside of 'hybrid vigour', could be wrong tho.

 

Just 'Googgled' geocaching ...I'd be careful hiding stuff down in stumps partic on street trees as other things may have been discarded, i.e. 'sharps' (I know, I know, once a H&S bod always a H&S bod )

 

Cheers..

Paul

 

PS We used to apply maleic hydrazide (Burtulin), a hormone I think, whihc was effective at reducing, not stopping, epics, trouble was if you missed a year they exploded (it's banned now.)

[HCR]

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?

 

Possibly as a result of its high level of palatability and the consequent level of browsing it can suffer.

[RopeKnight]

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

 

I use this technique as well. Apples/ornamentals, Gleditsia, Tilia etc.If I can just tear them or hammer them off if more force is needed. Removing the entire area is aggressive but they seem to respond well to it.

[daltontrees]

Heavy epicormics on lime are the bane of my life, I am surveyig alot of them just now, some of them look like proverbial burst couches. It is tempting to instruct epi removal and resurvey, but I reckon that whether the tree needed to put out the epi or not, by the time it has it adjusts its vascular flows in and around it and that unnecessary removal is a bad idea. I usually poke around with a torch and secateurs and give the butresses and stem a whack with the mallet until I am satisfied that the tree is Ok until next routine inspection. Only if I am not satisfied will I instruct removal and resurvey.

Epicormics have the benefit of keeping vandals, firestarters and strimmers away from the tree.

DEsparate cases I remove epicormics myself with a hedgecutter and chainsaw and tidy up off bigger wounds with silky. I don't think there's a right answer because the health of the tree is ironically less important to the client than being able to say it is healthy. A bit of a Catch 22.