Pawpaw People Weigh In

Long time now @Lucky_P has been telling me that good seed is the way to go… he’s not the only one. I’m glad this has come into discussion.

@hambone Mango in my regards is an excellent cultivar. Just throwing that into the ring.

If you have excellent seedlings… those are something we all might consider as trading suckers of in the future. Just gotta look at the root and make sure it’s heading toward the right tree. Of course that isn’t an option if you plant five or 10 seedlings in near proximity.

I’m hoping to get a root sucker from a friend someday. He found an awesome pawpaw in the wild and dug root suckers heading to it and now they’re established going on year three I think in his landscape. I’ve reserved a special place for that one.

So, I was just kind of commenting off of Steve/hambone reply that he has some great prodigy seedlings and he would or we all would be best off digging from these and moving them around in our landscapes.

Pawpaws from seed or root I would imagine can grow to enormous heights and live long years. Not sure how long, but, I’ve seen at least 30’ trees in the past in my area that were seedlings of local natives.

Dax

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What about root grafting? I remember reading about someone who wanted to establish an “own roots” apple orchard so they grafted scions onto a root but left the binding in place to girdle the nurse roots underground as the trees grew, hoping the scion would send out its own roots before that happened. Would pawpaw scions root under those conditions?

Not sure, but I’ve read air layering doesn’t work. I’m gonna try anyways. The possibilities would be endless.

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I have no idea but my inclination says that to put pawpaw roots from an unknown into the ground just means it’s going to thrive and you’ll end up with sucker after sucker. And that the scion will never form a root.

You aren’t going to kill the root(stock), unfortunately is my feeling.

Pawpaw will take off from a root alone it should be assumed.

Best I can write to answer your question, hoosier.

Dax

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Elissa Greenman , I believe ,is doing the nurse root with apples ,wire at the union buried ,
As she wants Apple varietys on their own roots.
A tip I believe she got from A.J. B. As he has luck with this on mulberry.

Pawpaws are a different " animal"
The holy grail of pawpaw would be ; to beable to easily get varietys on Thier own roots,
Idealy rooting cuttings , so as to avoid the apparent incompatibility that causes the decline in grafted trees.
Pawpaw are "extremely hard to root. " vegetatively propagated self rooted plants would surly benefit the industry.
But has proven elusive .

So there is a good project for someone, …any takers ?

I like the idea of “good " seedling trees as well. Each ,its own new variety.
Seed from " improved” varietys is selling at a premium price, hard to come by.

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I’ll let everybody know how this goes.

Dax

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I agree, take two proven varieties (low seed count, large flavorful fruit), bag and hand pollinate. My goal will be to use varieties that do well in all climates. Overleese and Mango both flower and fruit well in the Deep South.

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So does anyone here have regulus scionwood I wonder? It certainly sounds interesting

It looks like a German company has been successful tissue culturing pawpaws, but are keeping the protocol a secret and in their terms of service they say propagation from their plants is prohibited.

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Mango x Overleese could be a fabulous cross.

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I wonder about testing that theory. It does sound likely, but it would be straightforward to test: graft 10 trees back to themselves and 10 to named varieties and wait 12+ years. Or maybe try what I understand is done with chestnuts for a third category: graft 10 named varieties onto their own seedlings for closely related rootstock.

The reverse might be something to consider, too: plant seedlings grown from the best fruit attainable and let them fruit before grafting, keep the outstanding seedlings and then graft the rest.

How big (diameter) would a seedling be at first fruit, and would the tree have trouble healing over the graft wound at that size? Worst case, one could cut the inferior seedlings down and graft onto the vigorous suckers that would come up.

The other potential issue would be that seedlings are possibly less precocious than grafted trees (as with other species). Anyone know what the difference would be if any at all?

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I had a young pawpaw killed to the ground this year by ambrosia beetles. It did sprout back from the roots though.

This is in central Illinois.

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From what I’ve read a lot of the characteristics of pawpaws grow nearly true to type from seed of improved cultivars (more so with hand pollination vs open). Will pawpaws ever go mainstream? For the hobbyist, small scale farmer or small U-pick orchard is more consistency even required?

You make an excellent point on precociousness. This would make grafted trees (or possibly root suckers?) very valuable for the people listed above. Would root suckers from the mother be as precocious as a grafted version? How about air layers if even possible, I would imagine so?

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I think all the points being made are spot on!

‘Regulus’ is available as scionwood thru Red Fern Farm.

Red Fern Farm 2018 Catalog.pdf (1.0 MB)

Dax

Root suckers of named varietys are usually only found at one location .
That is : where the original tree was found . !
Many ( most) of which have been lost to time.

Air layering , has not worked ( studies at EKU ,elsewhere …)
Tissueculture has not proven itself viable ( although the mention of the German Co. Above sounds encouraging , what Co. Is this?)
Rooting cuttings has not worked .

I would encourage people to experiment , as we need self rooted varietys.

Unless a variety is continually passed around as root suckers. Tigertooth jujube seems to be a comparable example of a variety that has been maintained chiefly by the spread of root suckers even though other varieties of the species are normally propagated by grafting.

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I know this is an old comment, but in case you, Dax, or anyone else is thinking about these things any further, I’m pretty sure that only Susquehanna, Shenandoah, and Rappahanock are patented, and that Peterson’s other three named varieties, including Wabash, are only trademarked, which as I understand it, means they can be propagated, just not sold under that name.

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So Allegheny is not protected?

As I understand it it’s trademark protected but not patented.

Forrest Keeling Nursery says the following are patented - Shenandoah, Susquehanna, Allegheny, Potomac and Wabash. But I haven’t been able to find the patent for Allegheny.