Overcut Avocado stem, help!

Hello,

I am a new gardener, having great fun with my very own garden and green house in my new home. I have had a great first year with tomatoes, potatoes etc and my summer wildflowers.

I took a shien to growing from seeds and have a number of fruit plants growing from seeds (wild miniature mountain strawberries, plums, blackberries, etc) My most work intensive item however has been the finicky avocado seed. After two failed attempts I finally got one to sprout and it was doing very well at 12 inches and transplanted from water to soil.

However I was away for a week with work and asked my green thumbed aunt to look after everything, upon my return I found she had cut back my avocado to about an inch tall stem with no leaves! She claims it was necessary to encourage a strong stem but without leaves to photosynthesis is it not doomed to die? Is there anything I can use to help it survive, hormones, feed?

It was cut yesterday and looks very sad. After all the hard work I don't want it to die. AM i panicking for nothing and my aunt is right or has she doomed my little sapling? Any advice on saving it would be appreciated!?!

 

It sounds to me like she might have been a touch too brutal, regrowth will depend, I'm thinking, on whether there are any dormant buds in that inch of stem that remains.

My experience with Avocado as a pot plant has been one of mostly a single stem until it gets quite tall.
Good strong light will help to stop it becoming leggy.

 

Oh dear, its not looking good. I have it indoors and on a grow light on a timer. All the patience and hard work may be for nought, gutted.

Thanks for your replies folks.

Is there any kind of hormone or something i can dap on the cut stem to encourage/speed it up to sprout again?

 

Nothing I've ever heard of, if there are dormant buds it will regrow, if not ........../

 

:rage:

 

Just dragged this one in off the allotment, I grew it this spring.
Looking closely at the lower stem just above the old stone I can see dormant buds.

If yours has similar i think it will reshoot and maybe become multistemmed as your Aunt suggests.

Mine is just starting to form a bushy head naturally at about 18 ins high.