North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jerry Lehman <jwlehmantree@gmail.com>]

On 8/19/2015 8:56 AM, Louis Pittman wrote:
> My experience has been similar to mIEKAL's - container-grown pawpaws that I
> grafted and transplanted a year or so later, often grew for a year or two,
> then the graft 'woke up dead' after winter, and the understock re-grew.
> Now... in-groung established seedlings that were topworked to named
> selections... no decline or death of the grafted variety.
>
> But, again, it may be that if I did more than chunk 'em in the ground and
> walk away, they might have fared better.
Lucky,

Thanks for your input, I would like to hear if others have had the same 
experience. It is quite common for a grafted tree to abort the graft the 
year of planting if it comes under stress. I've not heard reports of 
this following survival of the 1st year. This may be problematic with 
pawpaws and may be involved with the pawpaws dislike for being 
transplanted.

In thinking about personal experience. I've only planted 3 grafted 
potted pawpaws and none of them survived the past 2 years. One that did 
survive after the graft failed died the 3rd year. But my experience with 
only 3 instances isn't enough to draw a conclusion. I believe it was 
partially my fault as I may not have cared for them sufficiently. We 
need to hear from more planters of grafted potted pawpaws.

About 5 years ago I planted 33 pawpaw seedlings from the IDNR nursery.  
I also have a wild population and took the tractor back and brought in 
dirt from those root systems in an attempt to bring in the Mycorrhizae 
fungi specific to a Asimina and back filled the holes of every other one 
with this soil. I do have a water wagon that I can hall 200 gallons at a 
time and spray onto the ground, simulating rain. I had also applied 
pelletized sulfur to the ground and tilled in before planting. They were 
planted in well dug holes, not chunked in. (Lucky, not trying to put 
your method down as it's difficult not to do much else when planting 
potted pawpaws.)  After planting when active growth had begun which is 
when I normally graft trees I grafted all of them using the Omega or 
saddle graft. Of the 33, none of the grafts survived past the 1st year 
and only 3 of the under stock survived. It's hell a be a total failure, 
and after all that work of planting those 33!

Jerry