Flood waters covered my pecan grove for two weeks and the water just receded this past Monday. This week the soil had a chance to dry out and I was finally able to get out to look over some of my grafts. Today, I came across an especially vigorous growing tree (photo at right). It looks like I already had 2 feet of new shoot growth. However, upon closer inspection I found that some of the new shoots were growing from below the graft union.
I had three shoots growing from the scion. The scion also produced catkins at each bud (photo left). It is not uncommon to see catkins on a new graft because these catkins actually formed inside pecan buds the previous summer while the scion was still part of a bearing Kanza tree.
This scion also produced pistillate flower clusters at the terminals of each new shoot (photo at right). Obviously, the Kanza scion I used for this graft was extremely fertile and ready to make pecans. A quick check of my mature Kanza trees revealed that they too set a big flower crop. So, I wasn't too surprised to find pistillate flowers on this graft.
The first step in trimming this graft is to remove all stump sprouts (photo at left). Since the flood prevented me from trimming this tree earlier, one of the stump sprouts had already grown more than 2 feet in length. By trimming off all the stump sprouts, I'll be forcing all the tree's energy into growing vigorous scion shoots.
My next step was to prune the scion down to one shoot (photo at right). Here I am selecting my new central leader--I want the tree to focus on growing a strong straight trunk.
To keep the new central leader growing vegetatively, I used my clippers to snip off the terminal flower cluster (photo at left). The terminal bud just below the flower cluster will break quickly and I'll see rapid growth of the scion resume.
To prevent possible wind damage to the tender new growth, I used green flagging tape to tie the scion shoot to the bamboo stake I had placed on the tree when I grafted over a month ago. Before moving onto the next tree, I set a
wire cage over the graft to prevent deer from browsing on the tender new shoot.
