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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fenris" data-source="post: 4835623" data-attributes="member: 2820">Well, how about an actual botanist chime in here? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />If you cut the top of any plant off, you remove the apical meristem. The meristem is the source of all growth, and the apilca meristem is responsible for upward growth. It also suppresses the other axillary meristem. So when the apical meristem is cut off, the other meristems can grow.This leads to more lateral growth. It is a very common practice to cut the top of any plant off to reduce its upward growth and make it grow more bushy and thick.As to whether it will die depends on a number of factors, but mainly how many branches with leaves (or needles in this case) are left on the tree. Too few needles and yes the tree will die, it has no way to make food. The other problem is that you just opened a huge hole in the tree's skin, so it is vulernable to viruses, bacteria and fungus invading the tissues of the tree.But yes, the tree could live. However, the noble and douglas firs that are usually used as christmas trees are heavily shaped as they grow, and that would be hard to do 80ft up. Also on such a tall tree the branch spacing woulf be much greater and it wouldn;t look much like a christmas tree.Worst, even though you may save the tree, youare removing the habitat for lots of insects, birds and small mammals by taking the top of the tree. So a farmed tree may actually be better in the long run, especially if you mulch it yourself or have it recycled at the end of the holdiays.</blockquote>

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