My Shenandoah (purchased 2019) began putting up a few suckers from the base of the rootstock this year. I let them get to 6-8" tall and just pulled them off. I trimmed the larger leaves by half and dipped the bottom in root hormone powder. I put them in a mix of shredded coconut coir, optisorb DE, and a little bit of chipped spruce wood and needles. I will update with any new developments, good or bad.
After planting this Shenandoah, I had sheet mulched about 4 inches of cardboard /compost /wood chips and only put a light layer of wood chips at the base of the tree. I think that the contact with the chips was enough to stimulate the trunk to produce suckers while staying dry enough to prevent rotting on the bark. I am performing this experiment to see if I can get the suckers to root, in hopes that I may be able to replicate this procedure in the future on a low grafted improved cultivars to get said cultivar cloned on its own roots.
This is effectively a form of air layering at the end of the day, but with a transition to cutting propagation. Not sure what to call it or if others have performed a similar trial previously…
If you dig up a few roots with the suckers you won’t need to try to root them. My pawpaws produce many suckers, I could get a couple dozen new rootstocks each year if I wanted them. A couple suckers came up in a location where I had nothing else so I am just letting them grow now, curious what kind of fruit they will have.
What I am calling “suckers” are very low growing branches of the rootstock. My hope is that this trial will be a proof of concept to try a similar test on future trees using named cultivars instead of seedlings so that the actual root suckers will be cultivars and reduce the likelihood of the graft dying prematurely.
I have heard that the life expectancy of a grafted pawpaw is significantly reduced versus a seedling (15-20 years versus much longer) so there is a definite benefit to getting them growing on their own roots. That is my intention here, although getting suckers for additional rootstock is a short term fringe benefit as well.
disc4tw, I’m going to add my grain of sand to the conversation.
You have some reason in what you propose, since in certain fruit varieties, propagation by rooting cuttings or other methods such as air layering results in a plant with a very powerful root system and suitable for all types of terrain, a great example it is the “self-rooted” walnut.
The Agromillora company is testing almonds to see their viability in self-rooted plants.
The pawpaw ( is not my speciality ) multiplies very well through the mound layering system.
But all that glitters is not gold, and it is necessary to see if the resulting plants of pawpaw without rootstock have good adaptability to different types of soil and soil diseases, since not all fruit varieties are suitable for self-rooted .
The behavior is being studied for the mass production of rootstock
from what i read, almost all varieties of pawpaw are quite close to “wild type” genetically speaking. And since wild types suckers readily, id expect most varieties to also do the same.
I would try and plant a grafted pawpaw (good variety) as a stoolbed plant. IE plant the graft way below soil level. Prune it back, And place a bucket/plant pot without bottom over the top. and bury the whole tree with it. (by filling the bucket with soil/media)
Or alternatively, plant it practically horizontally. And then burry the whole plant.
The shoots that grow trough the soil/medium in the bucket should form roots readily. And have both roots as wel as shoots of the variety’s genetics.
You could also root graft “cuttings”.
From what i understood, most plants prefer their own roots, so the root graft supports the unrooted “cutting” temporarily, until it forms it’s own roots. But since it has a root graft, even if it takes 1-2 years for it to make it’s own roots. It can survive.
And if it does not prefer it’s own roots, i don’t expect the root grafted plant to have a shorter lifespan than an own root version.
Thank you for the links Jose! Pawpaw is known to be challenging to propagate clonally as the USDA studies you shared also indicate. I will consider the successes they had in those studies with my future attempts.
I have some rootstocks I did not graft onto because they looked dried out and in bad condition. I planted them temporarily almost horizontally and they have begun sprouting many shoots, indicating your suggestion may be viable.
disc4tw, Impossible there is nothing hahahaha.
I have had experiences in non-sexual multiplication of varieties very reluctant to their multiplication by rooting or other systems (even in vitro) since nowadays the Murashige & Skoog culture media are for sale in any country and it is not so complicated, It is only a matter of asepsis, temperature and light.
For example in pistachio or persimmon, and with knowledge and patience some positive results are obtained.
But it is necessary to evaluate if all that effort is worth it for the result obtained, when the rootstock of any variety is at a low price in the nurseries, and multiplication by grafting is the most fun in the world.
Furthermore, a well-performed graft technique becomes “an art”.
have you done successful tissue culture at home?
How did you keep everything sterile? did you use a HEPA filter/fan/cabinet combination?
Or a glovebox/alchol spray?
Where did you get the needed media and growth regulators?
I want to try out DIY home tissue culture some day.
But some of the materials only can be bought at “special” stores. That require papers or a company.
So far however, I’m root grafting hard to propagate stuff. that seems like a viable DIY alternative. (basically digging up the plant i want to multiply, cut of some thicker roots, cut of some cuttings. And graft those together.
for those side shoots to successfully make roots, you usually want to bury them 4+" deep. (i usually go 4-8" )
It seems like the fresh growth growing trough a dark but damp growing medium promotes a different “structure” of the shoot that more easily forms roots. Still it can take a couple of months. So usually you don’t dig them up, until dormant season.
The problem with pawpaws, is that the roots stop growing in the dormant season so to have any success they need to be worked with in the growing season. I think that is one of the factors that presents a large challenge versus some other fruit trees.
The process you and @oscar are describing is called etiolation. Basically the shoot growing in darkness helps it revert to a juvenile state and be more flexible in whether it makes root or shoot type growth. It’s something I want to try out with persimmons, so I’d love to see your results with pawpaws.
I had collected some of the basic information and variations on the technique in be the thread below.
Funny you bring that up Was just reading about how White asparagus is made burying the Stalks to be growing without sunlight called etiolation which is twice as expensive.
I know others know this here,
I do not know it so well (or can explain )so let them explain better
What about the process of re grafting which you would have to do for this technique
#1 getting a root stock that is poor fruit quality #2 re grafting your desired scion #3 let grow, but then Girdle below the graft hoping to form roots on graft union. #4 cut, and re use the rootstock , and plant out Scion that grew roots on the graft union.
I always espouse the idea that nothing is absolute or “impossible” in the world of plants, so I am with you there.
However, from what I know of the international-scale research being done on pawpaws, it has not been accomplished or at minimum replicated in a sustainable way.
I am not omniscient by any means - I’m basing this on publications of KSU and presentations on the topic at the last International Pawpaw Conference in 2016.
Many commercially significant plants are propagated by cuttings but to date pawpaw is not one of them, I believe for a reason, sadly.
also keep in mind when a uni study is done on such a thing, they test if the commercially viable technique’s in use now, work with pawpaw.
If 5% root after misting them for 3 months, that’s not commercially competitive with tissue culture. So there is no need to test out if they will root at all. It’s only useful to test if they root within a time-frame and method that’s commercially competitive to the alternative (in this case tissue culture)
So that’s what they test for.
since pawpaw suckers root, and can be transplanted. I’d be amazed if the stoolbed would not produce viable rootstocks. Although they probably need more time, or would produce les than an MM111 stoolbed for example.
No you and @jcguarneri make a good point about commercial viability.
Maybe some hermit in the mountains has rooted pawpaws and no one knows
But my understanding is the pawpaw growing community has no knowledge of anyone doing it at all.
I could be way off
