can you tell if the new growth is below the graft. leaves and branches that are different than normal are typically rootstock growth and need to be pruned.

I will verify when I get home, but I'm thinking it's above the graft.

That is wonderful all that new growth!

It does sound to me that some of it may be the other root stock in which you want to get rid of ASAP..Anything growing beneath the grafted portion should be snipped away..

It looks really nice from this angle..

Mike

Well, it was too dark to take a photo by the time I got home, but for sure it's not coming from the root stock. The stem itself is also not "woody" like the other ones... it's more plastic-y or rubbery. I'll try to get a photo tomorrow. The foliage is the same as the rest of the plant.

any new growth will wont be "woody" and it will be flexible. This sounds more like a "water sprout"

"A sucker produced on the trunk, stem, or large branch of a plant, particularly fruit trees, usually growing straight and at a right angle to the axis. These rapidly growing suckers are generally removed to allow a more open tree and to provide better nutrition to the fruit."

I would go ahead and remove it.

A water sprout, eh? What I understand suckers to be are small growths off a main branch... this isn't small at all. It's probably 2.5' long, on a tree that's only about 4-5' tall total.

I may wind up removing it, but first I'll get a photo :)

Thanks! Learning new stuff every day here!

OK, I got some photos. Click the image to see a larger copy.

As you can see, the new growth just LOOKS different -- it's coming out on the left-hand side here:
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Here's a closer shot showing the "webbed" effect I was talking about:
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And the end of that branch:
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Here's the tree's full profile. The most upright one is the one that I staked up (see the link in my first post) after planting it. To its left is the new growth that caught my attention, and I've noticed that most of the growth looks like that. NONE of it is from the rootstock, and it's all pretty significant, so not what I would first think of as suckers.
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