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milford, CT,

Anyone else often have the 1st set of secondaries growing on the wrong side of the vine(under or over the main vine?..then the rest are in the right place 90 degrees to the main. I usually end up pruning the first secondary off to allow th main to fall naturally but was just curious if this is common amongst other growers? Mark

5/31/2009 10:43:56 AM

Joliet, IL

yep, it happens all the time from a slight twist in the vine as it lays down. i re-adjust them if possible or prune it if one of them looks to be long term trouble with adding a lot of stress on the main at that junction. i have seen many fissures and cracks develop between the main and secondaries growing weird off the main. keep an eye on them and address any fissure or crack immediately. these cracks or fissures do not usually show up until their is enough power in both the main and the secondary later down the road. hopefully they are not brown with rot before you notice them. i just pruned "the rear mains" as pap likes to call them this morning. they look like a secondary growing off the top of the main and will shoot backwards. these have caused me the most trouble in the past as far as stump fissures leading to rot. i have trained them as the first secondaries in the past, but too many times as the stump grows larger, some stress fissures can easily develop from the power struggle of too many things pulling on the same area. all small weird leaves shooting off the stump were also removed today. all cuts were made clean and flush to the stump and addressed with captan. you want a nice clean healed stump with no depressions or stalk pools for ponding water that leads to rot. now is the best time to address these issues in my book.

5/31/2009 11:45:11 AM

milford, CT,

Shazzy...sounds just like what I was talking about..I do the same ... I prune off whatever is not necessary..Mark

5/31/2009 12:07:18 PM

Menomonie, WI ([email protected])

you need a Giant Pumpkin Chiropractor :)

5/31/2009 12:31:06 PM

Rudolph

I have a secondarie ( maybe one foot from the stump that was under the main eating dirt, I just moved some of the dirt aside and traned it back up ) looks good now!

5/31/2009 12:42:19 PM

[email protected]

I grew a cutting from an 845 Bobier that Dave grew the year prior. The secondaries would go up or down no matter what I did to the main. Eventually I resorted to using landscape staples to nail the upper vines down. The lowest ones I dug beneath & trained them back down. After 2 sets of leaves the confused plant reluctantly accepted its fate.

The time wasted was never recovered & I settled for a very late set & less than 300 lbs.

5/31/2009 1:56:40 PM