I'm not an arborist, but in the winter, I'd cut off the two leaders growing straight up from the lateral branches growing on the crown. The one in the middle will become the leader and straighten and grow upward over time.

Well I had something similar with an Autumn Blaze. Had to pull a lateral up to make a leader, and could not pull it fully upright. 5-6 years later, you would not know it. Alternatively, you could split it up into multiple trunks. That's what I did with our Fire Dragon Shantung, and since it doesn't make a large tree, and has dense wood, it should not be an issue.

I don't know what truncatum hybrid you have (I may remember you mentioning Pacific Sunset at some point), but the Pacific Sunset at the local botanical garden did not maintain a central leaders, You may be fighting a losing battle.

Arktrees

This post was edited by arktrees on Wed, Jul 31, 13 at 9:43

down near the bottom of the pic ..... are there two leaders.. or is one of those a stake ...

how big is this thing... pic looks likes its 40 feet in the air.. but i know how old your stock is ...

your leader died .. my usual fallback would to blame a robin or greckle ......

the one in the middle is your new leader ... as well as 2 others fighting it...

i would probably truncate those 2 ... to insure dominance with the primary ....

and it wouldnt bother me that the new leader is not precisely straight.. though i might imagine.. it has the potential to bug the 'nure out of you.. lol ...

ken

I've attached a link for your reference - maples, like most other shade trees, do not have defined "leaders". It is termed a decurrent growth habit. Training of these trees while quite young is important. What you want to develop is a framework of structural branching so removal of what you term "pseudo leaders" may not be entirely appropriate.

But read the link for clarification.

Here is a link that might be useful: structural training of young shade trees

I'll probably get a pic after the leaves fall for a better picture.

The actual leader is there it just didn't put out a long shoot. I'm just wondering if this plant has already decided that lateral will be the dominant one.

There was a dominat lateral lower in the tree that I pruned in March and then again in June and the damn thing keeps growing more than the rest of the tree.

I'll likely see what spring rolls out and go from there.

GG, not sure I follow. My goal is to continue to train a leader/dominant trunk (which is what you want to do - if you can - with either growth habit. I don't plan to actually remove those vigorous shoots but cut them back.

Here is a Gingko I did it with. Except in this case the laterals didn't respond with vigorous shoots and the leader then put on extra growth to take the lead.

{{gwi:384077}}