Pat B's horseweed thread just got me to thinking here. My daughter is developing a cherry orchard which involves propagating ("cloning") a few different species native rootstocks and grafting improved varieties onto them. She get's shaft size native shoots from little bitty cuttings in just 2 years. I guess 80# spine may take 3? Anyways her little cuttings sure seem to grow awfully straight.
This sounds like a lot more work than it actually is. She takes ALL her cuttings (several hundred) on the last lunar quarter in June so the new roots can emerge during the warmest month of the year (July). I'd have to ask her for the exact latin but the ones she calls "red cherry" definitely grow the fastest, and probably straightest? Short lived tree, flowers earliest, snow white bloom, little red fruit.
The really cool part is, because it's such a short lived tree, she takes next years cuttings from last years cuttings, so theoretically at least, for just a couple hrs work per year, you could probably propagate enough shoots for you & all your friends and all their kids and grandkids and great grandkids.
maybe?
