Epicormic Shoot Forcing of Adult Red Maple, Sugar Maple, and Eastern Black Walnut
Dormant stem sections from three individuals each of Acer rubrum (red maple) and A. saccharium (sugar maple), and three clones of Juglans nigra (eastern black walnut) were collected from lower lateral branches of trees at least 30 years old. The stem sections were cut into 50-cm-long segments and placed horizontally in soilless media in a greenhouse. Two experiments were conducted to determine which treatments were most efficient for the production and elongation of epicormic shoots from latent buds below the bark. The first experiment consisted of a factorial arrangement of two levels of shading (not shaded or covered with 48% Saran shade cloth) and two levels of flooding (not flooded or flooded to a depth of 1/3 to 1/2 the diameter of the stem sections). Flooded treatments contained 0.025% NaClO to control microbial growth. The second experiment consisted of three media treatments: perlite, vermiculite, or a 1 perlite: 1 vermiculite (by volume) medium. No stem segments of any species in flooded treatments produced softwood shoots. Neither shading nor media treatments affected shoot number or length for any of the species. Additional sugar maple segments collected after budbreak produced more and longer shoots than those collected while dormant.