Many fruit trees have the ability to sprout shoots. This brings a lot of problems to the summer resident and harms the tree itself, since the yield is significantly reduced. To find out how to get rid of overgrown fruit trees on your site, you need to first find out the reasons for its appearance.
On what trees does it occur?
The shoots can be found next to most fruit crops. But most often, young bushes begin to grow next to those trees that are weakened due to various factors.For example, due to temperature changes, lack or excess of nutrients in the soil. Or if these trees simply die off from old age.
Most often, this problem occurs when growing plums, cherries, lilacs, apple trees, cherry plums, poplars, and birches. These trees can cause a lot of trouble before you can successfully remove the growth from the site.
Reasons for appearance
The most common reasons for the appearance of young growth:
- Exposure of the root system if the root collar was poorly buried.
- Damage to bark or branches (for example, if too many branches were cut off during pruning).
- Wounds formed after pruning (the cut areas should be immediately treated with garden varnish).
- Incompatibility of the scion and rootstock (due to this, metabolic disorders are observed, the problem can be noticed in about a year).
- Trimming the shoots (if you just cut off the shoots every year, they won’t get smaller; you need to dig them up along with the root system).
Almost all the reasons why a tree begins to grow greatly are associated with improper care.
When should tree growth be removed?
Despite the fact that the shoots have a negative impact on the yield, it is not always necessary to get rid of them. Very often, young bushes are used for propagation. For example, cherries and plums produce very strong shoots. For propagation, 2-3 year old shoots are used, growing at a distance of 2-4 m from the mother tree.
Removing bushes is necessary if this causes the yield to be greatly reduced, since all the nutrients are used for growth.
Also, as the bushes grow, they take up a lot of space on the site.If their growth is not controlled, after a while the garden may become completely overgrown.
How to destroy the growth of trees on the site?
There are two ways to deal with this problem. The first is to destroy the bushes mechanically. The second is used if the area is very overgrown. To do this you will have to resort to the use of chemicals.
Using chemicals
Destruction of shoots is used if other methods are completely ineffective. This method should be used as a last resort, because during processing you can not only destroy the shoots, but also harm the tree itself.
After treatment, the substances included in the herbicides disintegrate in the soil and do not have a negative effect on the environment and plants growing nearby.
To destroy young shoots, it is best to use the amine salt 2,4-D. The solution is applied directly to the leaves. Butyl ether effectively fights the growth of fruit trees. The drugs Roundup, Tornado, and Glukor are also effective.
Mechanically
The safest method of removal is mechanical.
Features of destruction of shoots mechanically:
- Shoots should be removed as soon as they begin to appear, before they have time to get stronger.
- Cutting off the shoots with pruning shears will not be enough; you need to dig them up without separating them from the root system.
- You need to cut off the stems of the shoots as close to the base of the root as possible.
- After removing the shoots, the pruning areas should be lubricated with garden varnish to prevent them from starting to grow back.
For the procedure, sharply sharpened pruners are used so that there are no creases left after pruning the bark system from the mother tree.Also, after this, the soil around you can be scalded with boiling water so that the shoots do not begin to grow again.
For example, cherries have a very specific growth system. Even if you dig up a shoot with its roots, next year several more shoots will grow in its place. So you can dig up the shoots ad infinitum and not achieve any results.
You can get rid of shoots by cutting them off with pruning shears. Bushes are cut at a level of 30 cm from the soil. Thanks to this method, in a few years it will be possible to “wean” the cherry tree from producing a large amount of shoots.
Folk remedies
In addition to the use of chemicals and mechanical removal, folk remedies will come to the rescue. For example, you can plant a shady tree (chestnut or maple) nearby. These trees will prevent other plants from sprouting. To prevent shoots from appearing in this area, the soil is mulched with a thick layer of peat, sawdust or straw.
In order to prevent the appearance of unnecessary shoots, the root collar is buried generously with soil. Very often it is the exposure of the roots that leads to the active development of shoots.
Prevention of occurrence
In order not to have to cut down the undergrowth every year, you can take preventive measures in advance. You need to leave a circle with a diameter of up to 1.5 m near the tree. Slate is driven in next to the tree to a depth of 1.5 m. It will limit the space at the root system, and the tree will not have enough room to grow. True, shoots will continue to appear in the circle itself. There will be significantly fewer of them, and removing the shoots will not be difficult.
Another option is to choose varieties that are not prone to overgrowth. For cherries these are the varieties Shokoladnitsa, Bagryannaya, Lyubskaya.
For plums, these varieties include:
- Ochakovskaya yellow;
- Italian Hungarian;
- Common Hungarian.
Mulching the soil will also help prevent sprouts, as will infrequent watering in the summer. When watering, do not make a strong stream and direct it to the root system. This leads to exposure of the roots.
It is not recommended to dig deep soil near the trunk.
Digging can damage the roots. It is better to weed the top layer of soil with a hoe.
