Wanted to share some notching results from this year. After reading your comments here and watching an Australian youtube on the topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf8vYRV_Z0A), I finally had the courage to do some heavy notching this winter: (1) to promote low, trunk branching on a spindly damson plum, and (2) to see how figs would react to notching.
I was really surprised by just how effective notching was. This is the 2nd year the plum has lived potted at my house while I wait for a place to put it. Last year, there was only top growth with zero budding on the lower trunk. This winter (late February) I notched with a chunky serrated bread knife (about 5mm above node) nearly every trunk node, and this spring about 80% of notched nodes are budding out--some as low as 8 inches above the soil line (just above the graft).
With figs in the past, plants that were top pruned tended to bud out from the 2-3 nodes below the pruning cut, but when lightly scoring above lower node with a box knife, again about 80% of scored nodes are budding out (some very low on the trunk) while unscored nodes tended to NOT bud out. Pretty satisfying results. Again, all cuts were made in late Feb. and there was just a tiny bit of latex leak from the scores. The scoring did not have any negative results that I encountered.
In the case of an unpruned HC that had grown top-heavy, notching above a lower node yielded budding while other lower nodes not notched did not bud.
Hope some with spindly plants will find this useful to encourage lower growth. It appears scoring in conjunction with tipping and/or pruning was significantly more useful than tipping/pruning alone.
Have a great weekend, folks.
    
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