I haven’t done much of this.
Here’s a few methods that I’ve tried with some success:
-harvesting suckers, my plums on prunus americana have started pushing some suckers, so last fall I dug these and planted out into a nursery bed. Some I top-worked in the spring, so these were already grafted over to cultivars, others I planted ‘blank’
-root cuttings; I’m testing this out with the p. americana, and Bud 118(apple), pencil diameter root cuttings 4-6" long, in the cellar now and will be planted out in the spring.
-rooting dormant wood, I tried rooting some end cuts from bud 9 last year, 5% success, plenty of room for improvement!
-from seed; I will be planting out stratified seed stock from my Toka, cornus mas, paw paw, persimmon and hope these size up in a couple years for grafting.
I also have a row of 2nd leaf bud 9 I’d like to establish as a stool bed, anyone doing this and have any sage advice? Seems pretty simple, I might let them have another season of growth before I shear them down to soil level.
Thanks for looking, Jesse
Here’s a diagram of more conventional rootstock production.
I’m starting pawpaw and persimmon seeds, too.
Kelby
Marianna tends to sucker pretty quickly- at least, the one I planted in a container sure did. Worth noting that the apricot I was trying to grow winter-killed, and that the plant was getting pretty rootbound. But other than those two things (failure and bad horticultural technique!) I did nothing to encourage it. I suspect that with very little effort you’d get plenty of new shoots.
American persimmon start so easily from seed, I can’t see using any other method for propagating rootstock. Bench grafting seedlings can be challenging, but they can be easily bark grafted in the field.
I’m growing pawpaws from seed as well. The issue with pawpaw is that they produce best in full sun, but young trees are photosensitive. I’m using root pruning containers and plan to keep them in them for 2 years. This will let me easily control sun for the first two growing seasons and then plant them in the permanent full sun locations when they are less photosensitive.
The only tree I’m still trying to propagate through root cutting is Jujube. Grafted Jujube using wild jujube root stock has the issue of thicketing through root system propagation. Since the rootstock is wild, the resulting trees are low quality. I got some Tigertooth grown on their own roots. In my application, I can’t keep the area mowed to prevent root propagation. Tigertooth root propagates much slower than wild jujube. This will both reduce my problem but also if I do get some root propagation, the trees will be tigertooth, not wild.
My success root propagating Tigertooth Jujube has been slow with poor rates. I’ve been starting with 10 to 20 root cuttings and ending up with 3 - 4 trees for each of the the last 3 years.
I know this is an old thread. But when I snipped the tops of my rootstock I places those cuttings into dirt. I’ve never tried it before but I’m having some buds open up. Is this just stored energy or will they root? And if they do root eventually? Can they become rootstocks themselves
If the cuttings do not have roots then they are just using stored energy, which is not good for success, but not impossible for at least some to generate roots enough to sustain themselves.
I took a 2” diameter limb I pruned off of a peach tree in February and immediately shoved it in the ground. So far, no roots but the buds have sprouted. It will likely just fizzle out like the cherries I tried this on last year.
My elderberry cuttings, however, have really taken off just by shoving them in the ground.
I did the same for some Bud-9 cuttings a month ago and I can no longer easily pull them out of the soil, indicating there are either some roots or some buds that pushed out — time will tell, but if they are successful, then yes, you can use them as rootstock next year if they are of a decent caliper and have enough roots (they should after an entire growing season).