Trick a Tree?

[jomoco]

With Halloween quickly approaching, I've decided to try and trick my jacaranda tree into growing roots from epicormic buds four feet off the ground.

 

The 3 inch dia trunk section I'm messin with is itself an epicormic sprout about 4 yrs old that I've pollarded at five feet, forming two callus heads, the lower callus head now encased in potting mix.

 

Ideally once enough roots have formed, I can whack entire mess off at three feet below the new rooting container, and be planted in the ground.

 

May seem a bit goofy n asinine, but that's never stopped me before!

[timbernut]

Saw similar done to a mulberry, the gardener doing it told me it was because he'd spent years trying to use ground suckers but they would never fruit, also said the usual way do I was to cut an 'arm' (18" long & 3" d) off the main tree, trim it and plant it in wet soil but he'd lost a couple this way so got them to aerial root in a pot first!

 

 

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[jomoco]

Steam boil n bubble

Make this tree gullible

 

Lizard lips n willow tips

A Babylonian brew soluble

[fagus]

I have done this on a Rubber Tree plant, Ficus elastica, I used a polythene bag and moist moss.

Edited October 16, 2016 by fagus
Added words.

[jomoco]

Salix Babylonica tea's been used to stimulate new root growth on cuttings from other tree species since biblical days.

 

High humidity's a must as well.

 

I'm thinkin that getting an entire 3-6 inch branch to put off enough roots to sustain itself in hard to propagate tree species like oak n other hardwoods?

 

Apparently two specific acid extracts found in Salix B end growth tips, are necessary to trick the tree just right, one says all hands on deck there's a problem, triggering the other to transform epicormic buds into roots rather than branches.

 

If this year's modest trick a tree test works, next year I'll try n trick an exotic trophy tree.

 

Doing it with a ficus is kinda cheating since they put off support aerials naturally.

 

Mimicking nature's a cool thing. Saving an arm of an otherwise doomed tree would be way cool IMO.

 

It's the tea n humidity that's key!

[jomoco]

So it's now Halloween, I was about to unwrap things gently to see if my ruse had worked?

 

When my inner Ent whispered in my ear that I was being hasty and unconvincing.

 

Then the phone conversation I'd had over twenty years ago with Dick Harris about his childhood orchard days n ways sprang to mind.

 

The practice of semi girdling the trunks of old n unproductive fruit trees, interrupting phloem flow downwards, so it can be shifted over to fruit production. Or in my case root formation.

 

Kinda like tellin that trunk it's do or die time, cuz soon I'm gonna cut you off entirely!

 

A bit draconian no doubt, but it's a cruel world at times.

 

Two weeks from now I'll girdle it completely, and see if the green top dies.

[Stubby]

On the edge of my seat bud ....... No seriously !

[jomoco]

Yeah, like this election season!

 

A tad spooky!

 

I girdled it 95 percent, leaving bouta half inch of phloem n cambium left intact.

 

Time will tell...

 

Jomoco

[jomoco]

Seven days away from the guillotine,

[jomoco]

Now that it's done and the head's on a pike?