In the fall I came across quince chance seedling that had grown into a sizable shrub in the bank of a ditch. It had a single fruit hanging on it which was delicious, flavorful and the most aromatic I’ve ever come across. One must attempt to graft it, right? I just came back from cutting some scionwood but now that the leaves are gone, I see it’s not just a single plant but group of numerous trunks. I wish I had noticed that when the leaves were on it because now I’m not sure exactly which one I had picked the fruit from. The red arrows in the photo point to the main grouping of trunks (including the black-looking wood which were wet). They’re are about a dozen of them of varying thickness in a radius of about a foot that I speculate are suckers of the same plant. About three feet up the bank was another trunk with a yellow arrow pointing to it. Would you suppose it is a sucker of the same plant as well? My worry is that a fruit had dropped there at one point and a seed took hold and grew - presumably not true to the fruit I had tried. Or vice versa. I’m just not 100% sure which one I got the fruit from and I’d hate to graft the wrong one. Would you think it’s same to presume all the trunks are from the same plant/root system?
“…I’d hate to graft the wrong one…”
I had to edit and re-edit my reply to you. Any stab I took at it came off as either ignorant ,condescending or both. Sorry.
The only way I could clean it up was to channel Yoda. (Again, sorry!):
“Accept you will. Have many wrong ones but right one too: Only together you will have all. Hmmmm.”
Couldn’t you dab some color coordinated paints on the branches from the “momma plant” you gathered your scions from? … If you tie something to it someone will tamper with it…
Check again throughout 2021 until you are confidant you got the right scion with the fruit you want.
Now, your “wrong ones” still hold my curiosity:
Do they / can they be rooted from cuttings?
You said that they grew to a sizable shrub on a bank.
As a root-stock it has proven itself as hearty even when neglected.
For erosion control, I see possibilities!
Please keep us posted!!
Chaenomeles, ‘flowering quince’, or Cydonia ‘fruiting’ quince?
Both are pretty easy to propagate by rooting cuttings… and in my limited experience, untended seedlings of both species tend to grow as a multistemmed shrub, though Cydonia gets taller than Chaenomeles.
“I had to edit and re-edit my reply to you. Any stab I took at it came off as either ignorant ,condescending or both.” Hahaha, no worries - I often find myself wavering between the two.
The tree is in a weird place - I was driving down a rural road with a large irrigation ditch running along it. On the far bank of the ditch is where I saw the tree. I couldn’t really decide if it was public domain or private property so I pulled into the house it was near to and knocked on the door. The guy was kind enough to let me walk across his property to the tree to cut some scions (he had no idea what I was talking about). Waiting through 2021 to see what the tree fruits is certainly an option but if I came across as having one shred of patience, I fear I may have painted an incorrect portrait of myself. I guess I’ll just buy a few extra rootstocks and graft them both - worst case scenario I will have wasted some tree space for a couple years but will otherwise have the quince I wanted. Yoda for the win.
Cydonia oblonga. Yeah, as you said, they tend to grow as multistemmed shrubs when left to their own devices. My main question is if the trunk 3 feet up the bank from the main group of trunks would be from the same rootsystem/plant or if it was the site of a fruit fall that grew into a tree - with a different set of open-pollinated genetics.
Impossible to know for certain at this moment.
I had a clump of seedling Cydonia, not unlike the one you pictured…was constantly spreading, by way of suckers popping up 4-5 ft away from the original plant.
So… yours could be a clonal clump, or multiple seedlings from a tossed-out fruit, or one dropped by the ‘mother’…but if either of those are the case, genetics of those seedlings should be pretty similar.
