When you begin to try to harvest fruit you may find that wildlife questions are as essential to your quest as pruning. The whips don't need to be topped now, and may branch without prompting, depending on cultivar. The least pruning you do the faster your trees will establish. Commercial orchardists sometimes prune nothing except branches that exceed 1/3 the diameter of the trunk at their point of attachment for the first several years untill trees begin bearing fruit. This works well for some free branching cultivars. It is cultivars that are uncooperative that need to be manipulated with the sheers to encourage propper branch structure. When you make cuts shortly after bud break it encourages less vigorous secondary growth behind the cut and actually creates a better tier structure according to literature and some personal observation. By this I mean you are less likely to get a response of equally vigorous growth from several shoots just below the cut that have to be sorted out by selecting one to lead. Instead you get more response from buds well below the cut. Tell me what you're growing and I may be able to be more specific. Training is dictated by cultivar.

It's a maple tree for heaven's sake.......it doesn't have a central leader. I'm not sure how it got into everyone's head or why it is such a widespread concept that every tree MUST have a central leader. It depends entirely on the species. Many trees, including most conifers, do have a growth habit that produces a central leader or dominant growth point - an excurrent growth habit. Other species, including a great many shade trees, produce a wide, rounded crown that does not feature a central leader but rather a number of codominant growth points - a decurrent growth habit. With decurrent species - like maples - it is counterproductive to the long term growth of the tree to encourage a central leader when none exists. Dan has the right approach - decurrent growth trees do need some early structural pruning/training to develop a good balance and placement of scaffolding branches and to avoid situations that can result in occluded joints but to encourage the development of a "central leader" in a species that does NOT develop a central or single leader is a waste of time and effort.

Tom, Obviously I can't be sure what would have happened had I just let these trees sort things out on their own. However, the owner of the place that sold them to me (botanyshop.com) said that he got calls from people who let the trees do their own thing, and the "leader" wound up literally bent over to the ground after a year or two. It's hard for me to imagine how a tree would sort this out to become an upright specimen. Maybe one of the side branches would eventually grow upwards? In the meantime the leader is touching the ground, not exactly a handsome tree. Or would the leader eventuially somehow pick itself up? With a cursory knowledge of how wood forms, I don't see how that would happen. By all accounts, Valley Forge elms need a lot of intervention to stay upright in their youth, much moreso than typical American elms. I suppose it's a combination of this particular cultivar, and the fact that they are propagated from cuttings. From what I've read here, it seems cuttings from some trees can figure out right away that they are a tree (not just a branch), while cuttings from other trees are persistent in behaving like a branch. For whatever reason, this one still doesn't quite get it, even while my other one figured it out quite a while ago. Alex

I just want to make sure. Lou just said the tree was now officially a three inch stump. That is right. I saw another comment about cutting it to ground level--that would scare me. Here is why. First, I have to admit that I have not done studies and have no official knowledge--what I have is just a lot of ovservations. The sprouts I have seen on red oak trees seem to me to come from points above the root collar--I can't recall ever seeing red oaks sprout from roots, even after the tree is cut. I can't say it doesn't happen, but I do know that a red oak tree will usually sprout vogorously from points just above the root collar. Hence my recommendation for the three inch stump. If the tree were much larger, I would have recommended a 5 inch stump above the obvious root flare. Anyway, to be on the safe side I recommended a three inch stump, "no more, no less." But if any of you have any more specific knowledge concerning this recommendation, let me know. I do know that the vigorous sprouts that come from as close to the root collar as possible make the better trees and have less risk of inheriting any rot from the old stump. But I recommend a "margin of error," hence the idea of leaving three inches above the root collar for sprouts to grow from. Also, the more sprouts for the first two or three years, the better, to maintain the health of the root system, which will be the support of the future growth of the tree. I know some other trees will sprout from the roots if cut. But I have a serious question about whether red oaks do, and if they do, whether the probability and/or quantity of sprouts would be sufficient. Well, I invite information from others on this point--even though I am getting "long in the tooth," I am as eager to learn as ever, if not more so. --Spruce