So, Google confirms these are indeed pawpaw flower buds. Hopefully, I’ll get fruit for the first time this year.
I have three pawpaw trees, but this is the only one with flower buds. I was initially concerned that they wouldn’t get cross-pollinated, but then realized these buds are on my Sunflower tree, which is supposed to be self-fertile.
Can anyone confirm that the Sunflower pawpaw is indeed a self-fertile variety?
I just order a paw paw rootstock. I wonder how many years the grafted pawpaw take to bear fruits.
Looking back at my records, these would have been planted in early 2016. So, looks like about three years for the Sunflower.
I wouldn’t count your chickens yet, my seedlings bloomed well last year and I hand pollinated but they dropped all of the fruit.
More to do with the size of the tree than it’s age it seems.
5 feet tall and you might see a bloom or two.
I think its common for pawpaw to drop their fruits the first couple years they flower. I know mine did.
Thanks for the heads-up on the fruit dropping. This tree has about 40 buds on it, so maybe I’ll get lucky on one or two. I’ll post an update in a few months.
Looks like the PA Golden also has a couple of small flower buds, but one is nearly broken off. Of course, won’t really matter if all the fruit drops anyway! Fingers crossed.
You might discover more flower buds as they start appearing towards the spring time, coming out of nowhere. Having flowers of at least two different pawpaws greatly increases your chances of fruit set. I wouldn’t rely much on self-fertility of pawpaws as their flowers are strictly protogynous.
You can use a toothpick to put a dab of honey inside each flower (not on the pistil or stamens) so bees will pollinate.
Dax
I hand cross pollinate flowers on my pawpaws every year and i have a good yield.
In this video you can see how its done :).
I planted a Mango and a Shenadoah in 2015. Mago has grown 2-3 times bigger than Shenadoah even though Shenadoah has more sun (both are in partial shade, my bad).
By 2017, Shenadoah set a couple of flower. Nothing on Mango. I also grafted my friend’s pawpaw on the Mango. My friend said his is Sunflower but he is not 100% sure.
Last year, Shenadoah had several more blooms. Nothing on Mango. Nothing to cross pollinate.
This year, I see several flower buds on Shenadoah (which is barely 3 ft tall), and quite a few flower buds on the grafted Sunflower. Nothing on Mango which is over 6 ft tall.
I hope I could cross pollinate Shenadoah with the “Sunflower” this spring.
I don’t know Mango does not set flower buds because it’s in too much shade or not (about 4-5 hours of sun at best). I can only hope my neighbor’s tree will be removed one of these years!!!
My third tree was a Mango. However, it died at the graft union. I’m just letting the rootstock grow out as I don’t have anything to graft onto it (other than the two varieties I already have). It might take a while, but I’ll just wait to see what it eventually produces.
I can give you Mango scion. Just PM me.
Actually my Mango get at most 4 hrs of sun, probably not ideal but nothing I can do now.
Mine have bloomed for at least the last couple years with no fruit.
I am hoping to finally get some fruit this year, 4th year in the ground for my oldest paw paws. (including a sunflower, a mango, an NC-1, and several Peterson varieties)
Mango and either Sunflower or NC-1 (need to check which) have grown the fastest by a significant margin.
Thank you for the offer. I’ll send you a PM.
