Cutting A Tap Root

kreashun

I purchased my Acer from stock at a local nursery around October of last year. The tree has nice radial root structure and a very strong tap root. It probably was not the best time to do so, but in my haste, I cut the tap root and lost a very large portion of the root volume, perhaps 40%-50%. Although the radial roots were good, they were too vertical for my taste, so I placed a golf ball directly below where the tap root originally was in an attempt to flatten out the roots to produce better nebari. Because of the loss of root mass, I also did some top pruning to hopefully keep the tree from dying. The tree seems to be doing very well and actually thriving after what I perceive to be extreme pruning.

Is it typical to lose that much root mass when cutting a tap root and is there anything else that I should have done to aid the tree's recovery? Also, will I achieve the desired results by placing the golf ball below the roots?

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Aaron_K

Hi Kreashun,

The tap root is not all that important. In spring it is common place for growers to dig up their trees, hack the tap root off, and replace the tree back in the ground. This encourages the production of fine fibrous roots, which are the ones that take up the water and nutrients for the growth.

Provided you have a reasonable amount of fibrous roots left, the tree should be fine. Placing a ball or tile below the trunk will encourage the roots to splay out (a tile would be better) and in turn create better nebari.

Usually, when root pruning is performed, up to 1/3 is removed. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less depending on the individual tree.

Just out of interest, is this the tree you talk about in your other post?

All the best,

Aaron

kreashun

Actually, yes it is. Was not sure if I should post the question under the same thread or not since I was asking a different question. This was more a question of curiosity since the tree is doing very well right now.

I also realized that the time frame I mentioned earlier is incorrect. I purchased the tree around March 2004.