Nothin' but pawpaws in the pawpaw patch

General Fruit Growing
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(no pay wall)
https://phys.org/news/2025-01-nothin-pawpaws-pawpaw-patch-large.amp

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So,the Pawpaw can be a territorial bully.

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"Or maybe it’s just that white-tailed deer at Tyson don’t like to eat pawpaws. If deer avoid pawpaws, then they may be selectively browsing through and munching all the other little green plants that try to get started in the patch.

Land managers can draw their own individual lessons from these findings, Wassel said.

“If you are monitoring a plot of land with the aim to encourage the growth of understory species, unfortunately, pawpaws are not your friends,” she said. “They will choke out diversity and whatever diversity persists is at the unpredictable whim of pawpaws’ shade.” "

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Correlation does not equal causation. My honest opinion is that this study is not effective without deer exclusion test plots as part of the control.

To my knowledge, pawpaws don’t have any allelopathic qualities, but they absolutely are at the bottom of the list for deer browse. I think this study is a great science based endeavor but does not include a robust enough control.

Another good control would be two deer exclusion plots, both planted with/without pawpaw and other shade tolerant understory species and seeing what that looks like after 10 years.

I also didn’t see wetland indicator status mentioned in the study. The ‘control’ plot might have been in a very different area and not as many plants might want to be growing…

Good science can hold up to replication through the development of theories from a hypothesis. I don’t expect they would have the same results from an area without deer. I’m very glad to see folks researching with pawpaws in mind though!

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@disc4tw
I gather you read the research paper but had difficulty with the stochastic models?

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My property in Kentucky(157acres)has around a dozen papaw croves/stands and vey little vegetation grows within the stands. I attribute this to shading from the large leaves and numerous younglings that create a heavily shaded ground. I rarely find mutiple trees in a cluster of trees producing fruit and the few times I’ve found two trees fruiting in a pawpaw cluster of trees,the two fruits always tasted different,and sometimes dramatically different. I always thought they would taste the same because they are all clones of the mother tree. I guess there could be multiple seeds dropped through say,bear feces,and the pawpaw clusters could have several genetically different trees growing in the same place. Deer never eat on the trees,whether they are young or old trees,but once the fruit is ripe,they,and every critter in the forest love pawpaws and you rarely find rile pawpaws sitting on the ground. I’d have to say bears are the biggest consumers of pawpaws and can eat a couple dozen in one sitting. Foxes and squirrels are seen more often than any other animal at pawpaw trees,but don’t eat near what a bear eats in a single visit. Birds also enjoy pawpaws,pecking at them on the tree and ground.

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Funny because my dad just sent me this article too.
I kinda found it to be something between a nothingburger and baseless fearmongering.
I didn’t read the paper.

In my big local wild patch, I actually see a fair amount of invasive privet and bush honeysuckle within the patch.
Though for sure some sections are pretty bare on the forest floor. .

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I agree. I thought it wasn’t even worth posting.

The honeysuckle and privet seem to lend even more credence to the idea that it’s almost entirely a story about light because they have very high tolerance for shade

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