Looking at this site Ultra-Select Pawpaw Seed BULK | Peaceful Heritage Nursery
I like the idea of them already being pre-stratified and ready to plant in pots, but I have no idea of the quality of the seeds. Has anyone else gotten them and grown them long enough to know how good the quality of the fruit is (on average of course, we’re growing from seed here!)
What is your objective in getting seeds though? You want to get rootstock? You want to try to grow out a seedling? If it’s the latter, the chances of getting fruit characteristics that are “decent” is probably 50% or less. As good as parents or better? Probably 5-10% (based on the experience here from growing out controlled crosses). This doesn’t include factoring tree habit or if you actually like the fruit you get. Shenandoah though mild can throw strongly flavored progeny even when crossed with a mild-flavored pollen donator. Some seedlings are more columnar, others more Christmas tree shape, some more stocky, some more lanky.
I suppose I have a few goals in mind.
First I’d like to try to get a nice “line” of pawpaws to hopefully deter deer after a few years.
Second I’d like to have another variety of cultivar so if/when I get specific varieties I have plenty of other types with which to pollinate to increase yield.
Third… it’s just a fun experiment to try to grow from seed 
Pawpaw pollination is rather binary. (Putting aside the reported very few semi-self-pollinating cultivars like Sunflower)
So long as its two unique cultivars/seedings they will pollinate (naturally assuming you can get the flowering time to match up). It can be 10 Shenandoah and 1 Allegheny or 5 Shenandoah and 5 Allegheny. The situation no matter what will require a Shenandoah to pollinate Allegheny and vice versa. You don’t need a 10 different pawpaw cultivars to get optimal pollination. You just have to have more than 1.
I agree that growing from seed is fun, just be aware you’re going to be ~ 2 years behind the person that goes to buy a nursery tree. (They have to wait 6-8 years to get probably their first fruit.) This isn’t like apples. Be prepared for the long haul if you are growing from seed. If you just want seed to grow out as a deer fence, I would just find local patches of pawpaw and get seed. The genetics are already acclimated to whatever local conditions you have. Actually, in NC, I would imagine there are plenty of pawpaw growers that would let you have their suckers and garden popups. My neighbors take mine in the spring.
Ahhh I wish! I’ve been looking for years on my nature walks but no luck so far
PM me.
The seed we sell is the same we use in our nursery to produce our Ultra Select line of superior pawpaws.
They look pretty great! I think I’ll have to get a pack, it seems like a really fun project!
Always busy, but I’m going to have to set an appointment to meet you and Jeremiah both. I’m in Rockcastle, Pulaski and Madison counties every week…not far from you.
Reports of self-infertility are largely based on poor data. Fertility in a single isolated tree has more to do with climate, soil, care, age, and pollinators.
I did visit Blake after if got cold last fall.
Impressed that he could raise a family on his little spot between Stanford and Danville here in Kentucky. Basically a collection of plants but the seedlings and scion and grafting being the revenue streams. Book sales, honey sales, produce sales probably just a break-even proposition. Obviously all the family knew the operation, including the children.
Nothing to do with that. Even though I have my own reservations, this is been reported by many well respected in the pawpaw world, i.e. Peterson, Nolin, England, Lehman, Powell, etc… If you dispute it, you’re welcome to take it up with them. I have all the cultivars pretty much and I am pretty sure most people plant more than 2 anyways, so it’s moot point for me.
@Richard that’s an excellent point of information that should be more well-understood. I personally cannot thank you enough.
I believe you’ve made too many assumptions.
@Barkslip
It’s in the pawpaw pollination references I’ve assimilated, perhaps one of them in that thread I started on the subject. I hope to get back to it this Fall. I’m currently working on an unrelated genetics paper concerning the bizarre world of microsatellites (a biology term!).
My assumptions were that Peterson, Nolin, England, Lehman, Powell and others who have been playing around with pawpaws collectively longer than over a century would have a good understanding. But to each their own.
