Jones writes:
I've always heard that if you break the tap root of a young tree, that
it will either die or fail to thrive, but I wondered whether that's
true or just an old wive's tale.

As a general rule it's certainly true. Plants that have a tap root seem
to have few substantial others. If you dig up enough of the seedlings,
sooner or later you will probably find one or two that have a couple of
main roots but no tap root. These rarities can be transplanted with good
success. (I base this on my experience with some local native trees which
have a strong tap root. I wanted to transplant some from the wild and dug
up many by cutting the tap root until I eventually found a few that had no
tap root but instead had a good set of main roots.)

The best idea is as someone else suggested: create a sand bed under the
tree and dig up the seedlings when they are much younger and their root
system is less developed. It they are small you can probably transplant
during any resonable weather.
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)

I thought that partial root pruning, that is, shoving a spade down to cut the tap
root without picking the plant up was the way to prepare a plant for moving. wait
until the following year when the plant puts out other roots to make up for the lack
of a tap root?
Ingrid

John Savage wrote:

Jones writes:
I've always heard that if you break the tap root of a young tree, that
it will either die or fail to thrive, but I wondered whether that's
true or just an old wive's tale.

As a general rule it's certainly true. Plants that have a tap root seem
to have few substantial others. If you dig up enough of the seedlings,
sooner or later you will probably find one or two that have a couple of
main roots but no tap root. These rarities can be transplanted with good
success. (I base this on my experience with some local native trees which
have a strong tap root. I wanted to transplant some from the wild and dug
up many by cutting the tap root until I eventually found a few that had no
tap root but instead had a good set of main roots.)

The best idea is as someone else suggested: create a sand bed under the
tree and dig up the seedlings when they are much younger and their root
system is less developed. It they are small you can probably transplant
during any resonable weather.



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