I have a nice sized gall growing on my orange tree. It forms where the rootstock was grafted to the top of the tree.
Every year it sends out growth. It has to be removed but there’s a trick to doing it.
Here’s my orange tree with a bunch of branches starting on the base of the tree.
We’re just going to pull them off. Not cut. Something about cutting makes the plant want to over compensate and send up MORE branches and shoots.
Look at the a closeup photo of the gall with the first few pulled off.
I just do it with my bare hands, But the orange branches have BIG thorns so keep an eye out.
I just bend them to the side and they come off pretty easily. You can go up farther on the branches if you like your tree to be bare on the bottom. Just no cutting!
Here’s my clean root gall all done. There may be a few more sprouts to take off, but it seems to do one bug spurt in the spring.
At the top of the gall you can see a dead branch and a few smaller ones.
These were the result of my cutting a sprout. I’m afraid if I cut it, it will start sprouting again.
If you must cut make it a messy cut. I know you’re normally supposed to make a nice clean cut the plant can recover from, but that will stimulate more growth.
Try to cut and break a little. If you do stimulate growth, it shouldn’t be as bad, and you can just pull those off.
Good luck!