Originally Posted by FishinRod
Do you know WHY girdling works to prevent suckering and adjacent pop up trees from the root nodes?

With the heartwood still in place, do the roots keep wasting energy trying to send sugars up the phloem layer to the girdle? And this process is what robs the tree of the ability to sucker or spread?

FR, girdling works because it cuts of the conduit of nutrients to the roots. So water and nutrients are able to flow freely up to the branches and leaves through the sapwood but the sugars produced in the leaves must be transported through a layer lying outside of the sapwood. There upper parts of the tree gets what it needs and the roots supply it (cooperating so to speak to get a reward of energy). But this depletes the energy in the roots needed to maintain the roots. Without a conduit back to the roots, the roots starve. When a tree top is cut completely off both pathways are cut. The absence of transpiration of the missing top of the tree triggers the roots to send suckers. So girdling is a tricky way to fool the roots that everything is OK even while they are starving.

Last edited by jpsdad; 09/02/24 06:55 PM.
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