---
title: Apical Dominance: Why Trees Grow Up First
url: https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/apical-dominance/
business: Battle Born Tree Service
address: 6301 US Highway 50 East, Carson City, NV 89701
phone: 775.232.8243
hours: Office Monday-Friday 8:30 am-5:00 pm; phones answered seven days a week; 24-hour emergency service
credentials: ISA Certified Arborist WE-11728A on staff; Nevada Business License # 20131580674; fully insured
type: Tree service (removal, crane work, pruning, stump grinding, defensible space, snow removal, firewood)
---

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- [Arborist glossary](https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/)
- Apical dominance

# What is apical dominance?

Apical dominance is a tree's tendency to put growth into its topmost shoot, and to suppress the buds and shoots below it, through hormones made in the growing tip. It is why a young pine grows up in a single leader with side branches spaced around it.

## How it works

The tip makes chemical signals that tell the buds below to stay quiet or to grow slowly. Remove the tip and the signal stops, and the buds below wake up and grow. Many conifers show strong apical dominance, which is why they keep a [central leader](https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/central-leader/). Many broadleaf trees show less, and fork.

The same effect works on every branch. A branch tip dominates the buds along it, so cutting a branch back to a bud produces a flush of sprouts just below the cut.

## Why it matters in Northern Nevada

This is the biological reason topping makes things worse. A topped elm, maple or pine does not just lose a top; it throws a thicket of fast, weakly attached sprouts below the cut, and in a place with strong wind and heavy wet snow those sprouts break. See [why topping is not pruning](https://battleborntreeservice.com/guides/why-tree-topping-is-not-pruning/) and [heading cut](https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/heading-cut/).

Dominance is also why a pine with a broken top sometimes grows a new leader from a side branch, or grows several rivals. How it recovers depends on the species.

## What an arborist does about it

Structural pruning works with the effect. On a young tree the arborist keeps the dominant leader and slows competitors; on a mature tree reduction cuts go back to laterals that can take over. When a leader is lost, the arborist may select one new leader from the rivals to restore a single dominant stem. On fruit trees the same principle is used the other way, with careful heading to spread growth, covered in [pruning fruit trees](https://battleborntreeservice.com/guides/pruning-fruit-trees-reno-carson-city/). The point to take from the biology is that where a cut is made decides what grows back, so the cut is never an afterthought.

### Sources

- [International Society of Arboriculture, Trees Are Good: Pruning Young Trees (brochure)](https://www.treesaregood.org/Portals/0/TreesAreGood_Pruning%20Young%20Trees_0621.pdf) (read October 17, 2026)

### Talk to the office

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### Keep reading

- [Arborist glossary](https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/)
- [Why topping a tree is not pruning](https://battleborntreeservice.com/guides/why-tree-topping-is-not-pruning/)
- [Crown thinning, raising and reduction: what each means](https://battleborntreeservice.com/guides/crown-thinning-raising-reduction/)
- [Tree trimming and pruning](https://battleborntreeservice.com/tree-services/tree-trimming-pruning/)

## See also

[Graft union](https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/graft-union/) [Central leader](https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/central-leader/) [Heading cut](https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/heading-cut/) [Codominant stems](https://battleborntreeservice.com/glossary/codominant-stems/)