Weird trunk on nursery stock

[Scrogdor]

Got a small Hogyoku Maple I saw at ace hardware. Trunk was cut pretty weird though by the staff there it looks like. Any thoughts how I could work this out? Or should I find some new material….
Was thinking about just clipping off that old branch base and part of the trunk, unsure if this would kill the tree though.

 

[BrianBay9]

I think what you're looking at there is a graft site, not artfully done. If you cut too low you'll get the root stock, not the variety you paid for.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

Not the easiest thing to work with, better be careful around the graft than sorry, its very easy to cut too much and maybe afect the vascular flow

 

[Moridin]

Let it grow then air layer it off the root stock.

 

[Scrogdor]

I think what you're looking at there is a graft site, not artfully done. If you cut too low you'll get the root stock, not the variety you paid for.

Makes total sense now that it's a graft. I didn't know this was a common practice among JPM.

 

[Crazy Diamond]

almost all the comercial avaible japanese maples specially selected cultivars are grafted, they grow more quickly and are more hardy

 

[QuantumSparky]

If you're comfy with ground-layering, that's a good candidate! Nice low graft site, you can just go through the process and re-plant the tree a bit deeper to cover the layer