Steven, This is off point, but as an aside, I have found suckers (Bud 9) to weaken when sprayed with the herbicide Chaparral. This is a pre emergent but is labeled for suckers on apple. The effect is a severe weakening of the sucker roots and they are very easy to pull a couple of weeks after the spray. This is only anecdotal evidence and my personal experience.
On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 7:49 AM, Steven Bibula <sbib...@maine.rr.com> wrote: > Is there any information on the long term value of pre-planting sucker > reduction? > > > > On some apple (and peach) rootstocks that arrive from the nursery, I have > seen what appear to be cream-colored, corm-like ‘nodes’ at various > locations on the roots themselves as well as the lower portions of the > central portion; these all pop off relatively freely when wiggled. I have > also seen suckers up to a few inches long as well. > > > > Are these nodes the origination points of future sucker growth, or just > suckers that are already on their way? Do suckering rootstocks simply > sucker from almost anywhere along their buried material, from dormant > sucker buds scattered all over? > > > > For sucker control over the life of the planting, is there any benefit to > manually removing these nodes and growing suckers? Or would that only > reduce the suckering for the spring of the planting year? > > > > I am planning to plant a lot of heavily-suckering Bud 9 and B.9/MM.111, > and if long term benefits of removing these nodes are worth the one-time > effort before planting, then I will do the work. The hardest suckers to > control are the ones right up next to the trunk, and any permanent sucker > reduction would be nice on these heavily suckering rootstocks. > > > > I hope someone has done the research and is willing to educate ignorant > folk such as I. > > > > Grateful in advance, > > > > Steven Bibula > > _______________________________________________ > apple-crop mailing list > apple-crop@virtualorchard.net > http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop > >
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