The Dominant Tree

One of the benefits of growing trees from cuttings is that they'll be genetically identical to the parent tree. This is particularly important if you're undertaking a fusion project and want all the trees you're fusing to have identical foliage and, if applicable, go dormant at the same time. Neither of these things are guaranteed if you're working with seedlings.

That's not to say that identical cuttings will behave in exactly the same way.

A couple of years ago I planted three almost identical Ficus Burtt-Davyi cuttings in one small pot. That pretty much guaranteed that their treatment would be identical - the same genes, identical watering and feeding. Only minimal light variation if one tree put another into shade.

None of them have ever been pruned.

Under the circumstances you'd think there would now be three very similar trees growing in their little pot. But somehow one tree has become dominant and is now more than twice the height of the other two, with branches as thick as the trunks of its two smaller siblings.

Three Ficus Burtt-Davyi cuttings in one pot

Yesterday, when I decided to separate them, I discovered that the two smaller ones had minimal roots while the big one had filled up the rest of the pot.

Large Ficus Burtt-Davyi aren't easy to come by where I live, so I'd like to see how much I can fatten up the dominant tree. I've moved it into a bigger pot, leaving the other two in small pots for now.

It will be interesting to see how the smaller ones develop now that they have room to grow.

Three Ficus Burtt-Davyi separated