Interesting idea. Might need permission from the patent holder, if the cultivar is patented.

Resin

Good idea

I think VF is a National Arboretum introduction, so personal propagation should be permissable.

hairmetal4ever:

There seems to be some gap in the anthropomorphic logic.

First, what you are describing is known as topophysis, where the location on a plant that the scion is taken from leads to the growth behavior of the rooted cutting (or graft). So, terminal cuttings from branches/stems exhibiting some apical dominance should root and behave like leaders. Terminal cuttings from side branches may well continue to behave like side branches after rooting. And so on.

So - why would radically cutting the sideways-growing VF make any difference? The new shoots still emerge from the same rooted cutting. I'd suspect that they'd continue to behave the same way, but it would be a fun experiment to try out and prove something one way or another.

"More than one poster who has a "Valley Forge" American elm has said that it is tought to establish a leader, since they are rooted from cuttings, that the tree still thinks it's a branch."

This will only be true of plants derived from cuttings taken from lateral branches. It should NOT apply to cuttings taken from vertically-growing or from the leader(s) of the parent tree. Thusly, the old "caveat emptor" applies: Know what you are getting before it gets you.

What you said about "every stump sprout you've ever seen is" refers to unadulterated trees (I'd wager), not rooted cuttings. I've whacked at more than a few grafted plants in my time. Above the graft, the plant behaves as expected. A particularly annoying pendulous Corylus is a good example. It was grafted on seedling understock, which sent up huge vertical stems while the pendulous scion continued horizontally along the ground. I would remove all of the "suckers" from the understock, and some of the prostrate stems while trying to train them up enough so that they weren't ground cover. That whole endeavor was a huge waste of time to grow a serviceable plant, but a great learning experience in just the topic you brought up here.

Personally: having planted many dozens of VF elms over the past decade or more, I believe that this is just an overly vigorous selection that is difficult to "make up" as a single stemmed plant in an open-grown situation. The vigor leads to floppy stems, and you basically have a low-branched umbrella-shaped plant. You must stake and train a central leader, and prune early and often to maintain this against-the-grain habit with this plant.

I think you would find greater success in densely planting all your elm rooted cuttings, and force straighter trunks by letting the individuals race for the light, like nature does in groups of competing trees (aka woodlands and forests).

Here is a link that might be useful: THE RELATION OF VEGETATIVE PROPAGATION TO TOPOPHYSIS, CYCLOPHYSIS, AND PERIPHYSIS IN FOREST TREES

>So - why would radically cutting the sideways-growing VF make any >difference? The new shoots still emerge from the same rooted cutting. I'd >suspect that they'd continue to behave the same way, but it would be a fun >experiment to try out and prove something one way or another.

I think there is a good chance it would work, here's why: When you root a cutting, the bottom of the cutting re-differentiates into root tissue, while the top of the cutting remains shoot, and if topophysis is at work, the top of the tree may still act as a branch, because it used to be a branch, and has not received any cues otherwise.

However, if the resulting tree is cut down, and it resprouts *from the root crown*, it seems likely to me that those shoots would behave as a tree, not a branch. Why? I suspect that when shoot tissue differentiates into root tissue (as when rooting cuttings) such a severe developmental resetting would eliminate any "memory" of being a branch. I'm also guessing that the developmental program that would cause a shoot to emerge from the root crown would only produce shoots with apical dominance. That is, it would only produce leader shoots. Surely the plant "knows" that it shouldn't produce a sideways growing branch from the root crown, right?

In any case, I may have the answer soon. A few weeks ago, my very troublesome sideways growing Valley Forge broke in a wind storm (my other one behaves nicely and looks great) so I cut it down to the crown. It is now sending up a couple shoots. Hopefully they will show strong apical dominance. If they don't grow well by the fall, I will dig it out and plant a Princeton elm in its place.

>Personally: having planted many dozens of VF elms over the past decade or >more, I believe that this is just an overly vigorous selection that is difficult >to "make up" as a single stemmed plant in an open-grown situation. The >vigor leads to floppy stems, and you basically have a low-branched >umbrella-shaped plant. You must stake and train a central leader, and >prune early and often to maintain this against-the-grain habit with this >plant.

I've planted just two, and they behaved quite differently. Both were floppy, but one started behaving like a tree after a couple seasons, while the other one grew thick side branches while the "leader" inched along, slow and thin. My feeling is that it's more than just a vigor issue. Princeton elms grow almost as fast from what I've read in this forum, and they all grow upright. Perhaps a few of us have just been unlucky.

Alex

I suspect Alex may well be right; I've seen a somewhat similar case in a grafted / cutting-grown conifer (Cephalotaxus harringtoniana) which produced a vertical lead shoot only after some severe cutting. It'll be interesting to hear the results of the experiment.

Resin