I’m looking for a source of wholesale pawpaw rootstock for a grafting workshop I’ll be doing in late spring. I need 25-40 plants that are the correct diameter (pencil width) at about one foot tall for grafting scion wood onto. Please let me know if you have any suggestions. Thanks!
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You could try Cold Stream. They only have 6-12” seedlings left, but they have a great price break at 25+ seedlings.
I believe everything they ship is bareroot so with pawpaws that’s obviously a risk.
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Anyone have any graftable pawpaw sources that still have rootstock left?
i had 40 pawpaw rootstock i bought that person told me was graftable, but its was not (maybe 7-8" tall from the root crown). Will try to initiate a return and get from somewhere else.
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You could try Kathy at Nash Nurseries. She’s great to deal with, but I’ve never bought seedlings there. They’re listed at $20ea for a 2yr old 12-18” seedling. Maybe she could cut you a price break? One Green World still has some as well. It’s slim pickins for graftable pawpaws right now. Maybe Blake will have some in May or June once he does all of his grafts? You could try my Cold Stream link above as well. They still have some 1-2ft seedlings listed, but can’t vouche on if they’d meet grafting standards.
Have you tried FB marketplace for someone local?
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yeh, FB Marketplace is a bit hard to find someone that will sell for a reasonable cost. Alot of very small seedlings… or at $20-$30 cost for seedlings. 40 x $20 is a bit rough, but $10 is a bit easier. let me check with ColdStream and see if they can specifically pick out the 2ft tall ones (I assume that means 2ft tall from ground-level vs 2ft tall from root to tip :).
I can also try other Pawpaw Groups and can maybe ask around in there later.
I just received my order from Cold Stream Farm – they only had 6"-12" available but it was only $2 or so a seedling for 25 of them. My plan was to grow them out for a year after potting them quickly (bare roots). I expected them all to be tiny 1/16 or 3/32 twigs and most are, but I was surprised to find maybe 3 or 4 with maybe a 3/16 caliber.
Not that it helps you, but for future reference I’ll see how they progress after transplanting since having another option on sourcing pawpaw rootstock would be nice.
(Edit: the ones on the left bundle are 1-2’ persimmon, the ones on the right are pawpaw)
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I ordered 1-2ft pawpaw from them a few days ago, looking forward to their rootstock. Is the 1-2ft persimmon rootstock graftable?
PS they have 1-2ft available on website too.
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Yes, I think the persimmon rootstock was 80% in the 3/16 to 5/16 range. I was planning to grow them out for a year but just ordered scions from fruitwood today as they still have some.
Based on the size of the 6-12, I think there’s a decent chance the 1-2’ are ready to graft. They weren’t in stock when I ordered unfortunately!
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Keep us updated on how these 1-2 footers look. I may be interested in more stock as well.
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I’ll get them next week i think, I’ll let you know (I added some persimmon rootstock after seeing Maryland seedlings were smaller than I needed… good price though so i’ll keep for next year). So much anxiety after buying couple hundred dollars of pawpaw/persimmon scionwood haha (I did trade on here for some free ones as well but most scionwood i paid for).
I actually paid around $7-8 each for 40 1-2ft pawpaw rootstock 1st from another nursery in the fall, as they said it was going to be probably graftable and i was willing to pay more for the gaurentee its good rootstock this year (also i asked them to try and get the 2ft taller ones for me be4 they ship), but I got last week and it was only 8" tall pawpaw and not graftable (guessing they getting from the state nurseries and just re-selling).
So they refunding me… but anxiety trying to find alternate sources so late.
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Finally got them. Pawpaw 1-2ft rootstock looks graftable. Persimmon 1-2ft rootstock seems not graftable. Taproots cut with a few feeder roots, which i assume what most nurseries offering anyway.
Pawpaw:
Persimmon:
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I’m curious. Why are those not graftable? I have little experience with persimmon. (plan to graft some tree’s next years though)
I would have guessed those on the first picture where fine to graft.
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Sorry i corrected pics, 1st 3 are pawpaw, (very thick off ground level), 2nd set of 3 are persimmon (not very thick past ground level). Only way i know how to graft those is very thin scionwood with a cleft (since a whip n tongue too hard on thin wood). But my scionwood is normal thickness.
So still looking around for maybe 20 persimmon rootstock.
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You can always try a Z-graft. That works well when your scion is thicker than the roots.
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Wouldn’t be ideal, but I’ve done worse. I actually just did a bunch of pears the other week with a similar size ratio. It would certainly be better than nothing. Unless your hands are small, that scion looks a bit on the larger side, at least compared to what I usually receive!
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Truly wishing good luck.
I will be interested to know if those Pawpaws survive.
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You could use 2 roots per scion.
All else fails you could ship me those big fat Persimmon scions and I’d send you some small ones.
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Got a guide on what that would look like? Cleft ‘V’ graft into both rootstocks maybe is the easiest (with both rootstocks squeezed together tightly)? The rootstock starts getting pretty thin 6-8" off the ground so assuming that would be the easiest.
Maybe this? front (on left) and side view (on right):
So the 2 rootstock are squeezed enough together so the left and right outer parts (in left pic) are touching the scionwood’s left and right parts, and the middle doesn’t matter so much.
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