If it were me (also 7a) I would wait until mid May. Water a day or so before grafting if it’s been dry and keep an eye on it if you hit a drought.
Your prior failure could have been for a host of reasons, least likely of which is too much heat.
I would not recommend doing a bark inlay where you try to have 2 competing leaders. It likely will not turn out well. Pawpaws like to have a strong central leader it seems.
Others may disagree.
Good luck!
Yes, wait for May and pushing leaves.
Shifting gears a little on this topic, when is the best time to cut scions? I’ve got two pawpaw trees on my property that I planted from seed and I’ve got locations on other pawpaws that I’d like to trim a few scions from to graft to my trees. Any recommendations on when I should plan to trim them?
I cut scions in February, toward end of month when dead dormant.
I guess it is late in 2025 to do this but I am thinking ahead to next season.
I have two beautiful paw paw trees, grown from seedlings that set fruit last year–I tasted from both trees, and the fruit was good. This year I saw fruit buds but they withered, suggesting they didn’t pollinate.
I would like to acquire a grafted domesticated variety, both to have a variety of fruit and also another pollination source.
If I can get scion wood next season, the suggestion on this thread was to start early, I am thinking of grafting to the runners. I have experience grafting apple and pear successfully, and my paw paws have plenty of runners.
Does grafting on a runner give me, in effect, another paw paw tree that fruits? I am not attempting the transplant the runner, which I know is hard to do. The paw paw trees and their runners are forming a paw paw grove that I want to keep.
Yepper!
grafting to an attached runner is like grafting to one of the branches. In both case all of the growth from the graft will be the new variety with its characteristics and it will be reliant on the roots of the original tree.
Those suckers are branches that originate at the roots forming extra trunks.