here is one article by dr. Pomper but there are many more if you do a good search…
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237403049_Propagation_of_Pawpaw_Asimina_triloba
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thanks, that’s an interesting article. Ill read it more carefully when i have time.
During a quick scan though, i saw the used suckers as a source of juvenile cells.
And that they did not try to make a “stoolbed” out of suckers.
Even though M9 for example can root from hardwood cuttings. Rooting % are low. Most clonal stock is produced by “layering” or a “stool bed” or similar technique.
i have no expertise with pawpaws, so this is me just thinking out loud. But if i wanted to clone pawpaws, id probably plant a sucker in a stoolbed, and completely “harvest” it each year, in an effort to keep it juvenile.
as far as you know, has anyone tried this?
Usually when juvenile cells are required this means that pure callus is generated from plant parts that easily form callus. This callus or undifferentiated plant cells are thus in a juvenile stage. This callus is grown on to increase in size and then divided into separate cell clumps. These are then treated with the right plant hormones in the correct sequence to form roots and meristems so that eventually a juvenile plant is created from these plant cells.
I’m not aware of anyone having tried to propagate pawpaw by using the stoolbed method but please do experiment… I’m curious about how it turns out. I’m sure somebody must have already tried this but we don’t know about it…
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I believe @Barkslip has experimented with toothpick propagation on pawpaws and I seem to recall he had some success.
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I did this with a jujube root in January 2019. When I was planting, a big root broke off. I potted it up, leaving part of it above ground and a few days later grafted a scion (Kima) onto it.
I didn’t get a picture of the new graft, but here were the trees (from GrowOrganic) that the root broke off- you can see that some of the roots were good sized…
Here it is now:
I re-potted it in September 2019, but until this year it hadn’t grown very much. I’m not sure if that has more to do with how it was made or my poor treatment of potted plants (not so regular fertilization and watering…). But this year it has grown 1.5’+. The scion was never buried, so it isn’t self-rooted.
I think this is the only time I’ve tried this and did it just out of curiosity and because I didn’t want to waste such a big root. I think I’ve potted up broken roots before, but don’t remember getting a tree out of them. So adding the scion may have helped, in that it supplied a vegetative bud, rather than forcing the root to develop one adventitiously.
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I did try pawpaws on the plants themselves with toothpicks (many) and none presented callus. The trees were in a woodland. I know I did at least 10 or 12 to find out if that toothpick method would work. I also did toothpicks on cuttings in my greenhouse and that didn’t do a darn thing, either.
If you want to root something, look at this. I wrote it. Now I don’t know anything about pawpaws from cuttings, however.
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back to the stoolbed theory…
I just wanted to point out that pawpaw suckers do not originate from burried stems or branches but they originate from roots, same as rootsuckers on American persimmon. All members of the Rosaceae (apple, pear, hawthorn, mountain ash, quince, juneberry, etc…) have a tendancy to form roots on the burried stem or burried branches. Hence the stoolbed method was developed. However, as far as I know pawpaw doesn’t form any roots on burried stem or branches, it only developes adventitious buds on roots that later develop into root suckers. That is a significant difference…
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good to know.
that is quite a significant difference,
Have root cuttings been tried?
A “regular” stoolbed might work. Simply because the heavy yearly pruning, tends to also incentivize suckering from roots. I assume it also does this for pawpaw? does anyone have experience with heavily pruning a pawpaw? (like 80% of the above ground tree)
I think that could work, but you need a named pawpaw variety on its own roots to start with. Once you have a single plant multiplying it should be relatively straightforward.
I want to try a stoolbed with a hybrid chestnut that I managed to root recently. I had to graft it and bury it for a while though.
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For me, a highly desirable pawpaw cultivar growing on its own roots with all suckers growing true to type is exponentially more valuable than a grafted tree of the same cultivar which will produce suckers of unknown quality (pawpaws are grafted to seedlings, NOT superior clonal rootstock selections).
While an individual pawpaw trunk will age out over time, there is no indication that the roots will age out even through multiple generations of people. When you plant a grafted pawpaw you plant it for yourself, but an own root of the same quality would leave a self perpetuating legacy well into the future.
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I agree with you! It’s just not something that anyone has really figured out yet with reasonable success.
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While it may be near impossible to get a grafted pawpaw back on its own roots, I think moving forward we can do better as a collective group of enthusiasts. In the future when new cultivar worthy pawpaw trees are discovered we need to make sure we have people propagating own root trees from the originals. Granted, this won’t lessen the demand for cheaper grafted specimens, but those in the know will be very happy to pay the higher prices associated with the extra work of producing the own root trees.
Too many of the currently available selections were released to the public exclusively as grafted trees. That practice needs to change.
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It is CLOSE to impossible, but people have done it. The challenge I see with that route for what you are saying, is that you can’t really be sure about a sucker being from a specific tree until it fruits, assuming it’s close to other pawpaws.
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Yes, that is the challenge, but there’s an easy work around. Just trace out along some major roots from the original tree, make some wounds to encourage suckering and mark the spot to collect suckers from the desired tree in the future. Sure it’s a bit of work, but I would consider the time spent to be a sound investment.
Preferably add some loose soil over the damaged roots so that the suckers will have a decent amount of length between the original roots and the soil surface.
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I’m planting a lot of seedlings from seed sourced from cultivars and UC Davis something or another pawpaw seed. And I’ll plant more cultivar seed… the reason is to start my own exchange “situation” for others doing the same. I brought this up as an idea some time ago on here (I don’t remember when) and encouraged others to begin planting seedlings… for this very reason.
Once you get a tree to 8 or 12 feet and cut if off at the base it begins forming spreading colonies. Before you know it, You’ll have suckers everywhere. What I’ve tried digging is basically a carrot root though so establishment of pawpaw suckers takes tremendous encouragement (babying with shade cloth and planting out of the sun if you can; such that like under the front of woodland facing north) and “lots and lots and lots” of watering. You’ll need to watch the leaves closely to tell you if they need food; all these kinds of things.
@JohannsGarden - is unquestionably correct that to “chase” a root - when near other pawpaws, means, starting at the tree and digging to to chase a root to find a sucker connected to the original.
Tyler Halvin did this with his Selection, ‘Caspian’… formerly ‘Prince Caspian’… he was able to establish one. He dug near the ortet which is 80-90 feet tall btw with a 2’ diameter at 4 foot breast height. He took home an 8 or 9 foot tall sucker and planted it in pure shade.
There’s a lot of good ideas & information to continue with this-thread…
Dax
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How has Halvin pawpaw done for growers? Above par taste?
I haven’t tried ‘Halvin’. I don’t have it grafted, either.
I say this with acknowledgent that I am very green in the ways of propagation, but there are a couple dots I haven’t seen connected that may or may not mean it is a useless thought…
For Medlar grafts, a lot of practice suggests buring the graft so that the scion eventually grows its own roots. If applied to Pawpaw, it does not completely get around the issue of basal clones, but is there potential for this to create a set of roots from which desired basal clones and/or cultivar specific roots can be collected for the suitably motivated. The taproot would likely remain purely the original rootstock, but I assume the clones are forming from roots closer to the surface, in which case some of them would be true to the original scion.
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One basic tenet that so many people either don’t consider, or are unaware of… Asimina is the sole surviving temperate genus of a family of ‘tropical’ plants. It’s root system is very unlike almost all deciduous tree species that most of us are familiar with… it has a relatively ‘fleshy’ root system that is just as dormant as the top, when the plant is in winter dormancy.
Most other temperate deciduous (I know almost nothing about conifers) species are carrying on root growth during the dormant season, any time the ground is not frozen solid. But not pawpaw; that’s why bareroot seedlings should be transplanted just as they’re coming out of dormancy, and suckers have best chance of surviving if dug & transplanted in late summer, before the fall descent into dormancy.
The old ‘toothpick’ deal… piercing the stem at base of current year’s growth in August, inserting toothpick, cutting off below the pierce/toothpick in November, and inserting in rooting medium over winter … would likely never work for pawpaws, for, ‘if’ they produced callus tissue at the wound site… it would never initiate root growth during the winter. I’ve never tried the technique, so can’t attest to whether it really works for any tree/shrub species that’s not already known for readily being propagated from cuttings.
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Some of the deciduous magnolias have the same type roots, Lucky.