Heavy snow or ice storms can break beautiful branches on your tree. And heavy loads of ripening fruit can break limbs on a fruit tree. Many people end up wondering if they can reattach branches.
The short answer is no. Reattaching is mostly not possible because the vessels that carry water and nutrients up the tree (xylem) and those that carry carbohydrates down the tree (phloem) will not grow back together. Plants are different than animals.
The long answer is that sometimes people can make it work, but the branch’s strength will always be compromised.
If a branch is split or broken and not severed, it’s potentially possible to rejoin them with grafting bands and support structures.
Grafting bands are like rubber bands made with polypropylene. You wrap them around the break to hold it in place. You probably need a support structure to help hold the broken end in place. The bands will grow with the branch. You will need to support the broken branch for years to keep it from dropping. Only try to fix a branch that won’t cause any damage to anything below it in case of failure.
The repair needs to happen immediately after the breakage to keep the cambium from drying out.
However, there is a high likelihood of failure of the fix. And if it did work it would be a weak spot in the tree forever.
So unless you have the tools and knowledge, your efforts can be put to better use to simply prune out the branch and carefully prune the remaining branches to grow to fill in the void. Read about how to safely make pruning cuts here.
Related Reading:
Here’s one person who has saved broken apple tree branches, he also recommends the use of pruning seal…
… but read Should You Use Pruning Seal? for an answer