How Pruning Yourself Spurts Growth

The paradoxical way to surge ahead is to cut yourself down first.

Photo by Gurpreet Singh on Unsplash

We tend to hear a lot of stories showcasing the 10,000 hours rule of success. This theory states that by the practice of a skill you can perfect it which leads to mastery and growth.

In the plant world, there seems to be another proven growth strategy- Pruning.

It has been well known that the plant hormone auxin is released by the plant’s actively growing tip and is transported down the main stem where it has an indirect effect on buds to inhibit branching. But if substantial amounts of auxin already exist in the main stem, export from an additional shoot tip cannot be established. Until recently we did not know why.

Scientists have recently shown that the main shoot dominates a plant’s growth principally because it was there first, rather than due to its position at the top of the plant.

Professor Leyser, of the University of York’s Department of Biology, who led this discovery said we know that the main shoot dominates mostly because it was there first, rather than because of its position at the apex of the…