Paw Paw Hunting

I am from Serbia :wink:

3 Likes

Nice work, brother. :grinning:

When you said pawpaws are hardy I was looking at the background and thinking you were in Vietnam or some rain forest looking jungle. Thatā€™s what peaked all this.

Dax

2 Likes

Ate the last pawpaw of the season yesterday; have been eating and freezing back pulp for several weeks now. Have not really looked at any of the wild natives around the farm, but the half-dozen named-parentage seedlings, with several different cultivars grafted in, growing alongside the driveway, had a pretty decent crop again, this year.
Persimmons are just about done, as well.
After a really slow start this spring - and very light crops set on almost everything here except oaks and nut trees - most fruit has ripened way earlier than normal.

3 Likes

Dad found a pawpaw growing on his land this week. He picked one and when we went and visited this evening mom and I tried it. I tried one many years ago but it was not ripe. I enjoyed this one , mild flavor of custard , hint of sweet.

7 Likes

@tonyOmahaz5 Iā€™m about two and half hours north of omaha and am wanting to plant a few pawpaw trees in the spring. I was wondering have you had any issues losing grafted trees over the winter? Iā€™ve looked at some old threads a while back and it seems like grafted pawpaws are less hardy than seedlings in borderline zones, which your location is probably not so borderline. Also, would you recommend Shenandoah and mango over the others for someone who probably has 2 weeks less ripening time? Not sure how much less I would actually have compared to you, just a guess.

2 Likes

@Derby42
Great looking pawpaw Jason! Those wild Missouri pawpaw are some of the finest and biggest pawpaw Iā€™ve seen. In the bottom of the Hollars where the creek runs and hills are so steep they are more like mountains they get huge! Those are the pawpaw my family refers to as lowland pawpaw which only grow in those wet, hot, humid microclimates. Missouri is my neighboring state as your aware so like Nebraska, iowa, Colorado, and Oklahoma Iā€™ve spent plenty of time there. The fallen leaves are always about a foot thick in those bottoms where those big pawpaw seedlings grow. Iā€™ve picked many fat delicious 6 inch fruits. As your aware we always watch our backs because where the pawpaw grow seed ticks are plentiful, poison oak, and copperheads seem to be everywhere.

1 Like

Shenandoah and Mango are a good choice. They will ripen for your area if you can keep them alive for the first couple of years by Winter protection to get the trees bigger. I would make a wire cage for them and filled with dried leaves to cover them completely to the top and a tarp or a trash can over them for the first two Winter. Removed the leaves in the Spring after hard frost.

Tony

1 Like

Thanks, Iā€™ll give that a try. Should be easy enough as slow as they grow. I was thinking about doing something like that for my contender peach since it already has a 3ft wire cage around it for animal protection but that tree ended up growing from 1 ft to 6ft this summer.

1 Like

All very true Clark, this tree is actually on the upland portion of his land , probably a seed carried up from the creek inside a coon. Dad checked today and the rest of the fruit had been taken by varmits.

2 Likes

@Derby42
Jason,
We are a little behind you on ripening times. There are few pawpaw here this year due to the drought and late freeze. Great looking tree and great picture of a great memory for you! That is a nice sized pawpaw for growing on the upland. Looks really delicious!

2 Likes

Not sure if I posted this but hereā€™s a few I got last weekend.

9 Likes

Probably late because it is so shaded by that mature oak tree

1 Like

clarkinksā€¦ā€¦you forgot to mention keeping an eye out for booby-trapped POT patches!

Lol I only hunt pawpaw where I know the ground but your right you never know what your going to stumble into. Never considered that!

1 Like

I planted 2 pairs of Sunflower and Susquehanna in spring 2016 at a rental. In both pairs the Sunflower has grown much faster than the Susquehanna (7ā€™ vs 4ā€™).

Have you noticed that Susquehanna is particularly slow growing? Or maybe more susceptible to black walnut (which is only 60-100ā€™ from both pairs)?

Hereā€™s a pic with Sunflower in the background and a little Susquehanna in the foreground.

2 Likes

@BobVance Your Susquehanna may have same problem or disease as my 10 year old seedling pawpaw (also stunted compared to other same age pawpaws here) although I do not see the dark spots on your leaves. Photo of my tree:

cid:5B15EE32-8B37-4818-8E85-903F1A2C70DB@Belkin

Do you know what might cause your Susq to look the way it does? I want to diagnose my problem ASAP so I can stop it from spreading to my other six healthy pawpaws if it is contagious. Symptoms start every July for last five years. Not simple sun scorch as it occurs also on north side. Also not variety related as two grafts on this tree have same problem.

I attach an article on black spot from NAPGA that Jerry Lehman sent me after seeing the photo of my tree. The next issue of their journal promises a more in-depth discussion of black spot in pawpaw. I joined yesterday so I can see the article when it comes out.

A commercial grower has four acres of pawpaws that look like my tree: leaves showing dark spotting and scorching. He had U of KY analyze samples but found no pathogen. Ohio State is now working on it. E-news_5-3-1018.pdf (4.2 MB)

3 Likes

No idea what caused it- I donā€™t normally pay them much attention as I only glance at them in passing when Iā€™m over there mowing. The pairs are over 100ā€™ apart, but the Susquehanna and Sunflower are less than 10ā€™ apart in each pair and both Susquehanna look the same. I donā€™t remember either looking sick before, though it has always been smaller.

I think both trees flowered this past spring for the first time. Maybe I should get some scionwood to graft onto the Sunflower, in case the Susquehannas donā€™t make it.

One other possibility for mine (probably not yours, since it starts in July) is early dormancy. Maybe the Susquehanna gets ready for fall a bit earlier? One of my peach trees dropped its leaves last week and a few others are starting to follow.

I only have three individual Paw Paw trees but I have noticed that Sunflower and KSU-Atwood are quite vigorous and that my Shenandoahā€™s very much a runt (though the difference with my trees is not as dramatic as yours). Your Susquehanna doesnā€™t look happy at all. Does it get more sunlight than the others?

My Susquehanna, btw, is in vibrant good health only 15 feet from the extremely sick tree. Mystery.

This is the first time Iā€™ve seen it look sick (though it has been the smaller one for a while). The one in the pic gets a bit more sun (itā€™s slightly further from the trees in the background (West of it). Iā€™d need to check the other two, but I think they get about the same.