Plant-Edders!
This summer, from the beginning of August, I have seen quite a lot of so
called lammas shoots on some trees: oak, beech, larch, elm, alder and a few
others. Theese shoots develop late in the season from terminal buds, which
normally shouldn´t burst until next spring. The shoots are long and pale
green, like in spring. We had a lousy summer in Sweden, cold and rainy, and
I just read (Kozlowski-Pallardy: Physiology of Woody Plants 1997) that
abnormal late-season shoots can be stimulated by abundant late-season
rainfall. I havn´t noticed these kind of shoots before - maybe I havn´t
been observant enough. They seem to be most abundant in sunny exposures.
The literature in this field seems to be mostly about conifers. We surely
have a lot of Scotch pine and Norway spruce in Scandinavia but I have
observed lammas shoot only on larch trees (not very common in Sweden). Does
anyone have suggestions how to explain lammas shoots in
terms of weather conditions? Besides,we have quite a nice September so far.
Gunnar Fridborg
Gunnar Fridborg
Associate Professor in Physiological Botany
Department of Physiological Botany,
Uppsala University Sweden
Mail adress: Villavagen 6
S-752 36 Uppsala Sweden
E-mail: Gunnar.Fridborg at fysbot.uu.se
Tel: +46 - (0)18 4712820 (work); +46 - (0)18 302820 (home)
Fax: +46 -(0)18 559885
