I purchased this as P. Pixie, which is supposed to be a dwarf, it grew at a ridiculous rate of knots (from 2ft to 7ft in about 4years in pots) it had the correct leaf form. Suddenly, i notice a massive patch of disease on the main leader which is 2inches plus thick..it still looks like it’s active looking at the black decay at the bottom. I’m thinking it’s a decapitation situation what do you think? If so when would be best to cut it off? I have another Pixie that is growing slowly..strange this one grew so quick and then this happen!
If it was my Pixie I would cut back some distance below the lowest extremity of the black patch. Try and do it when the weather is not going to be rainy or frosty for a few days, other than that as soon as possible. Looks like some other branches have previously had to be cut back. Don't know if this was before you had the tree, but they might not have cut back far enough allowing infection to spread downwards. Sometimes the JM's that grow quickly are the ones that suffer most from sudden major dieback. It has happened to me a few times with trees in their first couple of years of my ownership. Generally I regard growth that is slow to be tough and durable, and growth that is very fast to be weak and prone to infection.
Hey Rich, I'm with Maf, cutting back seems the only option now. I suspect it must have been way overfertilized to grow like that, which of course would render it very susceptible to infection. What's interesting about the infection, is it's mostly cured, but is still a little bit active at the top and bottom. But you can see the wound wood coming in nicely on the sides of it. So you could possible try to stamp it out there, with copper, and then wait 15 years, it may just grow out of it. But, who wants to mess with that? Not me! Cheers, -E
@maf @emery thank you both..makes sense, I’ll proceed and cut it! I’ve been quite fortunate not to loose many over the years but here’s another Red Pygmy, had grown slowly and steadily over 6 years developing a nice wide canopy, last summer looked unhappy and a branch died, and now dead above the rootstock..the graft had healed nicely about 2.5”diameter and had developed a super strong foot..the root ball was strong..and no evidence of vine-weavils..very odd!
@emery Re over fertilised - that sounds a possibility..but I’d never fertilised it..maybe from the nursery pot..generally only loosen nursery soil upon purchase and only remove lots of it if it’s that stodgy dense water retaining muck.
It might just have been grafted on a super powerful rootstock causing it to grow so quickly. Witch's brooms like Pixie tend to grow a wider stem above the graft than below. Which makes the tree look weak and a bit odd. Maybe the grafters are using super strong XL rootstocks to try and combat this trait? (Just conjecture, not inside knowledge...)
@maf here’s that Stinkim Interesting- I’ve seen that trait on (a very healthy) a 12ft Skeeters Broom here..above the graft is fatter!
We don't have Pixie as a WB. This has been agreed to by Alan, Ed, Cor and myself. No one has ever observed the truncated central lobe. Have you, Matt? So for the moment, it's classified in the Atropurpureum Group. Cheers, -E
Interesting - I will have to have a look this year when it leafs out, but maybe I haven't. I do know the leaves are bigger than all/most other brooms I have grown or seen. It seems to have all other broom traits though, including overgrowing the rootstock. I notice that Vertrees/Gregory 4th ed. states "reputed to be from a witches'-broom on Bloodgood". I always took the "reputed" part to mean reputedly from Bloodgood, not reputedly a WB. But given what you have said it could be read either way... I am also sure I have seen testimonies from growers claiming that JMWB's can stop showing the crab leaf trait after being grafted many multiple generations away from the original source material. Unfortunately don't have a reference/source for this. Edit: P.S. looked through the photo gallery thread for Pixie and some people posted pics with occasional truncated centre lobes. Obviously doesn't rule out wrong ID but food for thought.
