Yeah so a while ago after the Telperion farms podcast I did a little reading around cytokinin and auxin.
The summary is:
- Auxin promotes apical dominance in the branches by suppressing lateral bud formation / development
- Auxin promotes lateral root formation
- Cytokinin promotes lateral growth in the branches
- Cytokinin promotes apical dominance in the roots by suppressing lateral root formation / development
- The balance of the two hormones (among other factors I’m sure) determines the outcome - apical dominance vs side shoot growth above and below the soil surface
- Interestingly ethylene - the substance given off by bananas that ripens other fruit - also helps stimulate lateral root formation (though apparently too much suppresses growth!)
When you think deeply about that relationship, a lot of things in bonsai start to make even more sense - and can’t help but wonder at what a simple but beautiful system it is!
Reference https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2803412/
Obviously we are hypothesising about the outcome of a hypothesis, but I found it interesting and would be keen to see what happens when Mirai start testing 