Pollinating Pawpaw flowers

I just heard that cow manure attracts pollinator flies and is good fertilizer for pawpaws- from Neal Peterson, Mr. Pawpaw.

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Hoping someone here can help me out. I have a couple of Miller Nursery BT130 Cultivar Pawpawā€™s, mature and plenty of blooms the last two years. Problem is I donā€™t have a source of pollen from another cultivar of pawpaw. The trees are in upstate New York, and I have contacted Cornell University to see how long collected pawpaw pollen would be good for pollinating, no word back yet. Assuming its more than a few hours, Iā€™d be very interested in arranging a pollen swap by mail with some folks, or if someone here is around the Syracuse area it could be a pollen dropā€¦ Any interest?

Video how to hand pollinate paw paw :wink:.

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VIDEO ON HAND POLLINATING: Posted by Neal Peterson and by far the best Iā€™ve seen- gives extremely helpful tips on what to look for in a blossom- from the outside appearance- to tell male vs female stage.
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.petersonpawpaws.com%2Fpollination%2F&h=ATNg-2h5Nqgf2Lce6ZBgd7s0iuxM00JC85hs5G0nFOK9CQl80f2vYE5sPtnrE4ThIpWe_w74wRJdFY38XQl5WWo4BloKJEssQkyCwtzBMuWMJ5fJmkPNVSs

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Susquehana, Shenandoah, and Mango are loaded with flowers again this year. Hand pollination in a few weeks.

Tony

Susquehana

Shenandoah

Mango

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Iā€™m going to try,with a young Overleese,using some frozen pollen from a few different varieties,to see what happens. Brady

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I experimented last year with our wild pawpaws and smeared catfish stinkbait around when they were flowering. We had our best harvest yet.

I manage an unknown variety of paw paw at one site and it bears without cross pollination. Odds are it is not Sunflower, but I havenā€™t been there when they are ripe so Iā€™m not sure. Anyone else seen paw-paws that arenā€™t Sunflower bare fruit all by themselves?

Here are mine this year.

Last year I did not have a chance to hand-pollinate them. The year before, I did but they all fell off. Weā€™ll see if these stay.

My NC-1 and Sunflower trees were planted in 2012 and are 8 -9 feet tall.

With cool Springs here in SW Washington state, they get a late start. We have dry summers, and this may is unusually hot and dry already. Still, I have a little hope.

The Sunflower fruit starts look a little better than NC-1 at the moment. This one is on Sunflower. I pollinated, maybe, 50 flowers per tree over a 2 week period, and there might be a dozen incipient fruit clusters per tree now. So persistence pays.

Itā€™s so hot and dry now, I placed a 5-gallon plastic bucket under each tree, with 1/4 inch hole in each bucket, and am filling each one with water every couple of days. I hope that prevents the heat and dry from causing total fruit drop. I would like to finally get a taste of my own pawpaw trees.

I think these are behind those back East, most likely due to climate difference.

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