Uploaded April 2016 | Updated September 2026, 41 minutes ago
Apical Dominance controls the growth of many plants. You need to understand how it works in order to prune your fruit trees and grapevines so they grow the proper structure for the maximum harvest and yields as they mature. Hormones from the dominant buds restrict the lower buds from forming new branches. The buds that are closer to the tip are affected more than buds much lower down the shoot. If you cut off just the top dominant bud then the buds closest to the top will tend to grow vertically to try and remain dominant. On fruit trees these new branches would have very narrow crotch angle branches. Further down from the dominant bud the new branches would have better angle of 45 or more degrees for stronger branches that would not fail in the future.
Apical Dominance controls the growth of many plants. You need to understand how it works in order to prune your fruit trees and grapevines so they grow the proper structure for the maximum harvest and yields as they mature. Hormones from the dominant buds restrict the lower buds from forming new branches. The buds that are closer to the tip are affected more than buds much lower down the shoot. If you cut off just the top dominant bud then the buds closest to the top will tend to grow vertically to try and remain dominant. On fruit trees these new branches would have very narrow crotch angle branches. Further down from the dominant bud the new branches would have better angle of 45 or more degrees for stronger branches that would not fail in the future.
