"Andrew Ostrander" wrote:

Yes, this is certainly my understanding too. But you wrote that "the
highest bud becomes dominant". How does it know that it's the highest bud?

Because it doesn't have it's dominance stopped by any other terminal
buds.

All terminal buds try to release auxins that travel down and only down
to other buds below them and keep them from being dominant. Since there
is no bud above the top bud, it keeps its dominance. Buds that are
nearly side by side have trouble preventing dominance in each other.
The higher the dominant bud is above any other buds, the better shot it
has at establishing dominance over the other buds.

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