The hard thing is that, as Lucky and others have mentioned, pawpaws are a different plant entirely in habit and function for the way they behave when dormant. They can’t be compared to other commercial fruit trees because of that for something like this topic. I’m not saying it can’t be done, just that no one has figured out the timing or the secret sauce yet. Maybe taking greenwood cuttings and blasting them with 10,000 IBA for 10 seconds and then letting them callus for months like you have to do with blueberries (minus the IBA) then do a rain dance and stand upside down for roots to form. It’s hard to say until it’s done.
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I agree. You’ll kill the tree and shoot up root suckers. That’s precisely which will happen.
The “secret sauce” recipe is going to take place at (3) different timing(s):
mid-June softwood cuttings that are stiff enough to stand on their own and will never sag when stuck (under mist/mist bench) bottom heat if available.
mid-August use long cuttings in long pots or in nursery beds, such as 12-18" cuttings and bury them to 1 bud maybe 2 above soil line. or try burying halfway. (mist/ bottom heat if can - mist probably not so important for August cuttings, no I would think not. Bottom heat will promote rooting here though)
And dormant hardwood cuttings (bottom heat/mist) taken in December when the growth is hardened off but before it goes into winter and experiences cold-temperatures…
The “sauce” is in there somewhere to be made…
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Your quote left out the keys words in the sentence “For Medlar”. I don’t even know why it works for that species, only that it is touted often enough that it does. Maybe someone has tried to see if it works on Pawpaw too, maybe not, which is why I introduced it. The conversation has given a lot of good reason why it is unlikely to work on Pawpaw, though. I’m satisfied with grafting for Pawpaws, but I do have some other trees that I intend to airlayer just so they will be on their own roots. I’m glad to know that would likely fail if I tried it on Pawpaw, if only so that I can recognize when a cultivar says it is on its own roots that something is probably not quite accurate.
For pawpaw and medlar you mean to be saying? I’ve never seen pawpaw sold on their own roots. And unfortunately I’ve never shopped for medlar trees/shrubs online so know nothing about them.
Thanks,
Barkslip
if grown a few medlars.
You can graft them to quince and hawthorn (and probably other stocks)
Especially the hawthorn is quite resilient. I’ve had it thrive and outcompete a strong apple cultivar on MM111 in really dry and competition heavy soil.
So even if you could get a medlar on own roots. I’d guess id rather have it on hawthorn.
The point is to get it on its’ own roots for me yet… thanks for the extra thoughts, Oscar.
Okay,
Thanks
Barkslip
I’ve a few Medlar varieties and have had success with grafting onto Hawthorn, Quince and Aronia. No luck yet on Sorbus, but only had a couple tries. I’ve a windy spot, so I want them to stay lower and to avoid later graft failure, so my goal for them is to see them stand on their own. Nothing is tall enough to worry about yet.
For Pawpaw, it hadn’t even occured to me to want to grow them on their own roots, and I “know” enough people who work with Pawpaw that I can find them easily enough. Still, I’d love to see the solution emerge, even if it remains above my eventual skill level. Looks like success so far is essentially confined to seedlings less than six or seven months old, and there’s no guarantee on eventual fruit quality at that age.
I don’t even know five people who know what a Medlar is.
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Hi Jay,
After reading your suggestion, I am thinking I will try this this spring. I received a number of seedlings from a local friend and now they are only about 1/8” at the base. My scions are 3-4 times the diameter, but I have been thinking about trying to graft the seedling roots onto my scions. It will be a rather tedious task with such a small graft connection. If I can manage a double tongue graft on one side of the scion would you think I should bury the graft union a few inches to encourage rooting above the graft? I’m thinking that roots could penetrate the parafilm. Any great ideas that may work would be appreciated. How late in the season should I wait to allow the seedling to grow larger?
Dennis
@DennisD just throwing ideas around in my mind thinking about what you’re asking Jay. I think you might chip bud on the uppermost area(s) (try to put 2 chips or 1 per roots) and bury the root so the chip is just above soil level.
If you’re speaking of etoliation occurring (roots/vegetative growth from undifferenciated cells forming under soil) - then that’s something entirely different. You may consider chipping low enough under the soil also, if you can. See if that chip grows thru the soil and up into the air/sky. Then later you can dig it up and see what kind of cellular tissue that bud you chipped below the soil and grew up thru (that if) if may have rooting potential or, if injuring it and then applying something like a bulb dust over the injury so it doesn’t flat out rot when you go to re-pot, re-plant (to stimulate callus = etoliation of new cells that form on top of callus-bridges). I’d do your work in very lightweight potting soil, naturally, of course.
Just throwing some ideas around.
Barkslip
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I wonder if anyone has tried chip budding directly onto pawpaw roots…
I haven’t. Grafting a equal caliper piece of stick with single bud onto roots of persimmons works super easily. You just gotta be sure the union/carpentry + bud is above your soil.
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I think for the purposes we are currently discussing, you would actually want the bud to be below grade to root.
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That could happen too. Hell as Dennis thinks, you think, anyone relating callus to their in pot, soil less mix, testing…
Anyway you may generate callus - is the key.
B-slip
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Yes sir! That is the key at the end of the day. It’s just a complicated process for the pawpaw. I have a lot of catching up to do to get where you guys are in practice, but I’m trying to get the background knowledge down so I don’t reinvent the wheel.
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Who cares if the bud underground doesn’t grow if callus occurs, yes? [rhetorically]
As long as the root that forms is the variety you want, yes theoretically it would work.
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Very smart observation (I missed…) thanks!
Barkslip
One more to add to the puzzle, if you could get roots dangling in a hydroponic set-up where water is misted at the roots, with chips grafted in, you could see what happens?
You want to get the chip to grow one node of “length” where you see a distinct line in the green or in this case “white” growth because of its being in complete darkness-always, then clip it off, and let callus develop, then watch and see what happens…
you’d have to clip above the first band to to leave enough surface area above the line (to allow a bud to set.) So a 1/4" above.
bud is parafilmed to cover while roots are misted.
water is at 70 degrees let’s say… ??? I’d need hear advice from someone in the know of hydroponic growing if raising temperature is a good or bad idea.
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I was kind of leading the conversation that direction. I wonder if some cocktail of root stimulating hormones is already known in the literature for something like this. Basically an extreme version of etoliation like @jcguarneri referenced for persimmons. Currently above my pay grade but worth thinking about, especially if my blueberry misting setup works well. I think it would be an easy conversion, hardware wise.
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University professors told my friend Gary Fernald that etoliated tissue of pecans was impossible to produce trees and will only form roots… he told them that twice he was able to generate callus at the top(s) of pecans that were grafted and in (I believe) well, either peat or sawdust, one… it’s one or the other.
He was able to make trees of cultivars…
Later in the labaratory they “made it happen in petri dishes” and it was supposed to astound him !!! he thought and told me ‘yeah, I told em so 10-years before that’.
Barkslip
P.s. Gary is very-well known across the United States as the discoverer of many pecans and hickories ranging from New Boston, IL to mid-MO. He and his friend Bill Totten traveled 30-years plus to check as many trees for nuts that cracked well and had size…
He’s what you call the guy “wearing the overalls”
that’s Gary.
I can ask him for any tool at any time, and he has one - in his pocket. It’s amazing what he carries every day.
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