Cool deal - yeah since I hand pollinate I am not as concerned with proximity.
I presume to know almost nothing at this stage, but my little patch is on a roughly 8’ x 10’ irregular pattern. My intent is to prune for size while they are young, and I assume that I will find I do not like at least a couple of varieties enough and will remove a tree or two in the coming years. Since they are a clonal tree by nature, I am hopeful that I’ll deal less with with runners with a level of proximity. I am also assuming that a level of hand-pollination will be required. Knowing myself, I am more likely to do it if I can buzz around in a few feet like the bees would be if they would service these trees themselves.
I am also intending a couple of smellier types of plants to encourage potentially functional pollinators, and would rather keep them largely where they are appreciated instead of spread out to areas where they will be seen as pests.
I think 8 to 12 feet spacing is in the neighborhood. Two good books on all this by Michael Judd and Blake Cothron.
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4,6,8,12,… all are fine. I don’t think it matters a lot as pawpaws are not prone to fungal diseases. They are also in shade in the wild and home growers are putting them in the sun so a little shading by other pawpaws is if anything going to make them feel a little more “at home”. The spacing rules for other fruit trees don’t really apply to pawpaws.
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I wish it were true that they are not prone to fungal Diseases.
For years this was not discussed but now it is a hot topic and KSU is selecting for phyllosticta resistance.
The KSU orchard has been slammed with phyllosticta for the past couple years.
I have never ever seen any significant disease on pawpaws in 20 years of observing wild and orchard pawpaws… so at least in the conditions I am in they are disease resistant. I might have seen some minor leaf spotting, but it was not bad enough to register as a disease to worry about.
Has anyone else ever seen any significant disease on their pawpaws? Maybe in some environments they are more disease-prone.
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Yeah, I had to cut down a ten year old seedling from Edible Landscaping (“Select”) that late every summer had discolored leaves that drooped making the tree weaker and weaker each year. Neal Peterson couldn’t quite put his finger on it from emailed photos but suggested I cut it down, that it would never recover. A second Select, same source, planted same day, 20 feet from diseased tree, has never had one diseased leaf, ditto for my other five trees. Neal mentioned it could have been a genetic flaw.
I had a yearly problem with some kind of sucking insect ruining too many leaves. But after I thoroughly sprayed one time one year, I haven’t had the problem since. I try not to spray them.
I’ve seen only one diseased wild patch but generally in the wild they are pristine. Growing trees in “unnatural” full sun I speculate has something to do with the disease susceptibility.
@Blake i think would concur with my comments. He’s spoken a lot about the myth of pawpaw disease immunity and has seen the infestation at KSU I would suspect.
Ron Powell’s (NAPGA head) farm in Ohio has also had a terrible time of it.
Certain varieties seem to be more susceptible (not surprising) and certainly environmental conditions have a big role like in most fungal pathology.
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Sounds like Black spot.
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In my experience and observations pawpaws that are isolated from other pawpaw tree groves or isolated from wild pawpaw populations (or perhaps closely related species like Asimina pygmea) have a good opportunity to remain free from most diseases and insects. Think of a backyard grove in a large city for instance. Or, somewhere like the Western USA where no wild pawpaws exist, or another country like Germany or Italy that has no wild pawpaws. In a city environment like I mentioned, there might not be other pawpaws for many miles around and thus no pawpaws to serve as hosts for endemic insects and diseases that can then spread to your cultivated grove.
In situations such as at KSU where you have hundreds of trees established decades ago and also wild populations of pawpaws not too far away, expect diseases and insects to show up and establish. These include pawpaw peduncle borer, zebra swallowtail butterfly, ambrosial beetles, pawpaw webworm, and diseases like black spot and phylosticta. Often these do not present a major challenge but they certainly can be problematic. My biggest challenge is late frosts destroying the flower blooms. Already this is happening in 2022. Thankfully they can set a 2nd batch of blooms, so we’ll see.
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Revisiting this. Hillbillyhort’s list hit on mine… while I have plenty of pawpaws around, I needed to ‘park’ some named-variety scions where I could easily access them later. Then, I soon hit the point that… one pawpaw fruit is about all I want to eat in a season… so I just left 'em alone, and lost IDs… I didn’t care… and can’t even tell you for sure if any of the grafts are still alive… I can’t pick them out 15 yrs down the road… they’re all on named-parentage seedlings, and the trees produce good-flavored fruit, whether they’re from Overleese, Mango, etc., or the seedling trees they were grafted into.
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I would like to know if anyone is keeping a blossom sequence calendar that may be helpful to plan new varieties based on cross pollination potential. I have a small dedicated space so far with just a few varieties so I am interested if you have knowledge about this subject
Please advise
Dennis
Kent , wa
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Hi TT,
I am wondering if there is a known optimum callousing temp for pawpaw grafting. I have four seedlings potted and in the greenhouse that are about 4-5 weeks ahead of my outdoor seedlings. The top 3 leaves are about 3/8” to 1/2” long. The green house varies from about 45F at night to about 70F during a sunny day now. Am I close to starting in the greenhouse?
Dennis
Kent, wa
Hey Dennis!
Folks much more experienced than me have always told me to graft when high temps are steadily in the 80s.
I don’t really have a way to prove or disprove this.
I did graft early one spring and temps cooled off suddenly. I had mmore failures that year. So since then I’ve waited for guaranteed warmer temps and seem to have had better luck.
My multigrafted pawpaw has a standout variety this year. 3 chip buds of Jerry’s Delight were grafted to this branch last May and all 3 small growths are already blooming. There are a few blooms elsewhere on young grafts, but not so much as this one. Perhaps Jerry’s Delight is a precocious variety.
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I haven’t heard a specific temperature, but I always hear they need to have active growth. No dormant grafting. I’ve taken to doing my pawpaw grafting in May here in Napa, CA, 9b. Good luck!
Thanks Aaron,
That’s what TT thinks as well, so I will wait a bit so my greenhouse temps are up a bit
Dennis
Kent, wa
Looks great!
How do you get good pressure on those chip bud grafts after you make them?
And what kind of tape/material is in your photo?
Maybe the same answer to both questions hehehe
I feel chip buds are more difficult - harder to get things to line up. Then i never have heard a great way to apply pressure to keep them from just being pushed out by rootstock cell division
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