Mother/Daughter windswept blueberry... keep the daughter?
- Thread starter Chris Frechette
- Start date
Gsquared
Shohin
I'd keep it for now. You can always cut it off at a later stage of development.
Scooter9166 - 5a
Yamadori
- Messages
- 61
- Reaction score
- 45
- USDA Zone
- 5a
Keep it, as long as it makes you happy.
GrimLore
Bonsai Nut alumnus... we miss you
Keep it, wire it upright for now... Let it grow and develop something balanced but smaller on one side(daughter side) 
Grimmy
Grimmy
JosephCooper
Shohin
I'd like to see something like this maybe?
JudyB
Queen of the Nuts
I've always been a fan of multi trunks. They interest me far more than single trunk trees. Something about the poetry between the trunks of well made ones...
dirk hoorelbeke
Omono
Depending on the age of the mother I tend to keep the daughter. In this case I wouldn't go for windswept. There would be no daughter there in the wind.
Leo in N E Illinois
The Professor
- Messages
- 11,427
- Reaction score
- 23,604
- USDA Zone
- 5b
It is hard to see the trunk & nebari details, in the future, try to hold the camera lens even with, horizontal, to the rim of the pot. Looking at the tree top down angle makes it hard to see what the base looks like.
@dirk hoorelbeke is right, if this is a windswept, there would either be no daughter, or if there was, the daughter would need to be on the opposite side of the mother tree, sheltered by the mother. I would suggest keeping mother daughter, but go for more of an informal upright. Or remove the daughter, it is just a matter of time, and a sucker will sprout on the correct side to create a daughter trunk from. The roots will sucker. If it doesn't, the tree is not happy.
Assuming this is a commercial culinary blueberry, the long lived part of the bush is the root system. The root system can be commercially productive for over 100 years. Keep the nebari more buried than exposed for the first decade or two. It looks to be planted too high. That will likely encourage suckering. When you repot, plant it deeper. Bury the roots. It will also help with heat tolerance. I don't know much about native to Texas blueberries, but do know a bit about commercial northern blueberries.
A branch or trunk of a blueberry will tend to live about 25 years for a commercial blueberry, and be replaced by other suckers at a regular basis. The root system will tend to favor trunks with less ramification. So if you want to keep a trunk long term, do not allow a sucker to remain more than one growing season. You can do multi trunk designs, but you have to be aware that roots may favor supporting the younger, less branched trunk over the older more highly branched trunk. If you look at the fields I manage, no above ground part is much older than 15 years, Yet one field was planted at least 60 years ago, another maybe 25 years ago. Each stem, or trunk hits peak productivity year 5 thru year 10, each year producing more berries, but the size of berries declines as the number of berries increases, years 5 - 10 the weight of berries per branch can be relatively constant. After about 10 years the weight of berries per trunk or branch begins to decline. If the grower does not remove an old branch, the roots will abandon the older branches in favor of younger branches somewhere around 25 years.
You can keep a trunk going many years beyond the normal cycle, if you do not allow younger suckers to compete with the older trunk for the resources from the roots.
Hope this helps.
@dirk hoorelbeke is right, if this is a windswept, there would either be no daughter, or if there was, the daughter would need to be on the opposite side of the mother tree, sheltered by the mother. I would suggest keeping mother daughter, but go for more of an informal upright. Or remove the daughter, it is just a matter of time, and a sucker will sprout on the correct side to create a daughter trunk from. The roots will sucker. If it doesn't, the tree is not happy.
Assuming this is a commercial culinary blueberry, the long lived part of the bush is the root system. The root system can be commercially productive for over 100 years. Keep the nebari more buried than exposed for the first decade or two. It looks to be planted too high. That will likely encourage suckering. When you repot, plant it deeper. Bury the roots. It will also help with heat tolerance. I don't know much about native to Texas blueberries, but do know a bit about commercial northern blueberries.
A branch or trunk of a blueberry will tend to live about 25 years for a commercial blueberry, and be replaced by other suckers at a regular basis. The root system will tend to favor trunks with less ramification. So if you want to keep a trunk long term, do not allow a sucker to remain more than one growing season. You can do multi trunk designs, but you have to be aware that roots may favor supporting the younger, less branched trunk over the older more highly branched trunk. If you look at the fields I manage, no above ground part is much older than 15 years, Yet one field was planted at least 60 years ago, another maybe 25 years ago. Each stem, or trunk hits peak productivity year 5 thru year 10, each year producing more berries, but the size of berries declines as the number of berries increases, years 5 - 10 the weight of berries per branch can be relatively constant. After about 10 years the weight of berries per trunk or branch begins to decline. If the grower does not remove an old branch, the roots will abandon the older branches in favor of younger branches somewhere around 25 years.
You can keep a trunk going many years beyond the normal cycle, if you do not allow younger suckers to compete with the older trunk for the resources from the roots.
Hope this helps.
