I have 5 pawpaw trees in my backyard.
It is a partial shade area that gets good morning sun then filtered sun in the afternoon.
The trees only seem to grow about 8-12" per year.
They are grafted varieties (Susquehana, NC-1, Shenandoah) and I water them from time to time due to our lighter, sandy soil.
They are composted above the ground and weeds are cleared about 2 foot diameter around the tree.
I have hardware cloth rings around them about 16" diameter around and 4" deep to protect them from falling branches in the yard an to discourage deer munching. 2 of them have been saved by the baskets so far.
I am reluctant to fertilize them as they are sensitive in the roots.
Is there anything else I can do to accelerate the growth process? This is their 3rd season in the ground, and im starting to think they’ll never get to 6 foot, they’re about 3 foot right now.
I used strong Urea Nitrogen 43-0-0. On all my pawpaws. Mine 8 years old pawpaw tree is 12 feet tall and 8 feet wide. I sprinkle about a teaspoonful under the canopy and watered well until they all dissolved.
I read either here or on GardenWeb that one possible solution would be to take a spade and dig around the perimeter of the pawpaw several feet out to sever any competing tree roots.
Good to see your name again MegaMav.
Another Pawpaw grower posted some photos here and I was impressed by the growth, as they were about the same age as mine.He wrote,they were fertilized with diluted urine. Brady
Thanks guys.
Im always lurking around, reading more than writing.
It sounds like patience and more water may be the wise choice here.
Nothing worse than waiting 3 years then doing something to compromise the project because of impatience.
I think this year I will water more than I have in the past and see if I get a better growth response.
It seems they cant get enough water but the soil has to be well drained from what I’ve read about them.
Maybe I need to go a little firmer with the aqua.
I use the same wire fence surrounds as you do for several reasons. One thing that a veteran paw paw grower always does on his young trees is to continually maintain a thick ring of decaying mulch/leaves to benefit the trees in multiple ways including making a home for beneficial fungi that improve the trees’ health and ability to grow. He also regularly feeds them light doses of fertilizer during the growing season. The wild paw paws found growing in the woods depend on the decaying leaves, etc. to nourish them. Copying what works elsewhere makes sense.
I’d like to speed mine up too. Do you think Ammonium Sulfate would have a similar effect, or is there something special about Urea for pawpaws? I have Ammonium Sulfate for the blueberries.
I bought my 40lbs bag of Urea Nitrogen from Earl Mays a couple of years ago for $32 and I used on all my fruit trees right before buds break and another application about 4 weeks later and that is all. All my trees reacted so well to Urea Nitrogen with nice super green leaves. You can get it from any farm supply store also. I have not use Ammonium sulfate so I don’t know the result.
urea seems to be the deadlier version of nitrogen with intentional/accidental overdosing, even when prorated with the nitrogen equivalence of ammonium SO4, at least from my experiments on tropicals bac in the day.
Some of my pawpaws took a long time to take off. I don’t know why but it seems like it takes the roots a long time to adapt to their conditions and start growing well. In a year or two it will be cranking whatever you do, at least based on my experience. Just don’t move them, I have a 10-year old pawpaw which makes yours look big, but I moved it twice. Pawpaws seem to take an extra long time to adapt to their soil conditions and produce new roots.
I fertilize but not a lot. It could be an extra boost of fertilizer would help.
I planted my two small grafted pawpaws last spring. I thought moving them after less than a year of planting should be easy. Wrong. They have already developed long tap roots. I had to cut off their long tap roots during digging because I could not dig any deeper…
I thought they were dead. It’s until this Sun, when I noticed green buds started to push. It took almost two months to find out they are not dead. I won’t plan to move any pawpaws in the future. .
If you are adding N in any form it would seem like a good idea to sever any competing roots as well. If paw paws do have trouble competing with other trees then it seems you might just be feeding the other trees.
Mega, for a pawpaw that size, I fertilize in the spring before bud break with 8 oz. of ammonium sulfate. I use this instead of urea because it keeps the pH down, and pawpaws like low pH. Save the urea for the apples, pears… You might check the pH of your soil. Could be high. If so, use sulfur. Pawpaws really like sulfur, in elemental form or in sulfuric acid in your water to keep the pH down.
I have not fertigated trees in the ground, but for my pawpaws in containers I fertigate with 250 ppm N. I like Plantex 24-8-16.
marc5,
Is that 8 oz = 0.5 lb = 1 cup of ammonium sulfate per tree? That seems like a lot for one tree. I’ve got two pathetic 3rd leaf Peterson pawpaw “twigs” that I got from one green world in 4X4X4 inch pots with tap root clipped. I want to push them more. They put on some growth in april. I spread 3 tbs of 33-0-0 urea coated ammonium sulfate around each one in March then again a few days ago and have been worried about it burning them after reading Tony’s one tsp urea per tree, but I have seen no burn yet. Your application is a lot more N that I put on, so perhaps they can withstand more N than is commonly recognized? My soil is sandy so that probably helps. Alternatively, I really screwed up and it is just a matter of time before they start to burn hahaha!
I also have first leaf mango and seedling paw paws in tall pots from Just Fruits and Exotics that are twice as tall as the twigs, and are already putting on a lot of new growth. I’m sure some of it is varietal differences, but the nursery practices probably made a difference too.
Yes, 8 oz (1 cup) of ammonium sulfate for a tree that size. But to clarify: this is the pelleted form of AS (like lawn fertilizer or urea), not the crystalline water soluble form. If you can only find the crystalline form, you should ration it out over several days or weeks, depending on rainfall, so as not to shock it with too much N at once.
For larger trees–with a trunk diameter of 1"-2", I apply 2 cups of AS per tree. They love it. I believe you need to push your trees more. If you get a chance, read the late John Gordon’s wonderful e-book about growing fruit and nut trees. He was an advocate of large amounts of fertilizer, and believed more trees have suffered from a lack of N than too much. I had to scour the web for a link to the book. Here it is:
