| Hello,
In September I thought I'd try my hand at chip budding paw paw with some extra seedlings. The budwood was quite small, and the seedlings (in pots) are in their first year, so not the best starting material, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I also tried budding onto larger shoots of a paw paw I have in the ground.
When I unwrapped them 6 weeks later, all the chip buds on the larger shoots of the outside tree fell off. When I unwrapped the smaller ones on the potted plants, all 4 stuck. They don't look that great to me, but this is my first try, so I'm not sure what to expect. Here is one of them from three views:
The arrow points to where I scratched the bark and saw green. All 4 showed green.
The green is promising, but the color of the rest of the bud bothers me. The brown color of the bud doesn't bother me, since paw paw buds are brown until spring, but the dark color of the bark does. BTW, the strands you see are from a Q-tip I used to brush on some liquid fungicide. All 4 had a little bit of fungus growing around the union. After they dried I wrapped them with parafilm again.
My questions are:
1) Could these be successful grafts? I know I can't be sure until spring, but is there hope for them?
2) Should I keep them wrapped?
Thanks for any input,
Alex
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