Thread: How to Top Work a Pecan Tree to Change It's Variety

This is a duplicate to the post under tree propagation. This thread is intended to follow the one Pecan tree graft and post maintenance to grow the graft out.

As a tree is Topworked the trunk tries to maintain a growth rate. This Stump root system is still very much alive so care must be taken so too much new growth is not removed. We want to keep the Stump growth vigor.



All the buds on both Pecan Scions have broken. Growth is usually a little slow to start with but these buds are not growing as fast as they should. Looking over the rest of the shoots from the stump I see numerous new growths with lots of vigor. Most are above the graft where A-Typical Dominance kicks in. Since I chose to place the graft at a lower point on the stump shoots than the others attention must continuously be paid to remove vigorous growth on the shoots to force growth out of the Scions.



First to reduce the A-Typical Dominance I topped the tallest shoot back closer to the graft height.



These vigorous green shoots is sending hormones to the stump letting it know "We are Growing, keep feeding us" so they must be removed.



Here is a picture with the proper thinning of growth to send more energy to the graft area.