Hi Group!
I’d love to diagnostic advice on what could have happened to my young pawpaw tree. I planted it in the fall of 2023, last year it did fine with big leaves, no flowers or fruit. I planted a pair, and they both did about the same.
This year, one of them had a bunch of flowers and the other only a couple. I decided they couldn’t pollinate each other because of this misbalance, and went to a local park to collect some pollen from wild pawpaw trees.
I hand pollinated the more robust pawpaw on April 23. I came back to my orchard (hour away from home) on April 30 and saw what I think were baby pawpaws. Tree looked great but there were some baby spotted lantern flies on it. I decided to give all my fruit trees a coating of surround to protect from the SLF.
I came back today (May 4) and the pawpaw is looking terrible! Leaves withering and falling off. I’m trying to figure out… could it be from the Surround spray? (Though the second pawpaw is looking much better) Could I have brought in some kind of disease from the wild trees with the pollen? They were looking kinda off, the wild trees… but I really wanted that pollen 
or maybe it’s overwatering, since I watered on the 30th and it’s rained since then? Or something else? I’m so distraught 
poor tree.
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Did you have strong sun? My first pawpaws suffered scorched leaves and was saved only because i installed 75% shade"umbrellas" over them. I did that for first two summers and now they can handle strong 9a portuguese sun
Could also be a fungi disease, how are the roots, mulch, bark etc around trunk?
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Good point about the sun, mine are in nearly full sun. But these trees were fine last year, so I assumed they could handle the sun.
I just checked closely the other trees, and looks like they are starting to suffer as well. The second tree from 2023 and the babies I just planted this spring. 
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Pic of the damage on the baby tree that I planted just a month or so ago. I did not put any pollen from the wild trees on them, ofc, but they are nearby to the older tree that’s really not doing well.
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Sorry forgot to reply about the trunk and roots. Visually everything looks fine so far. I haven’t checked the roots, afraid to do more damage. This happened so quickly, over a matter of 4 days.
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Surround isn’t the issue. Sun scorch wouldn’t be an issue this time of year or at that age either. Transferring pollen wouldn’t cause that either. Overwatering could be possible if your soil drains really poorly.
My immediate fear is that it was attacked by ambrosia beetles. They bore into the trunks and branches of trees that are stressed. That could be due a number of factors, but most commonly happens from a late frost damaging new growth. Closely inspect the trunk for small pinholes. The holes may have sawdust coming out of them or plugging the holes. The Surround spray may be concealing them. I would wipe the surround off the trunk so you can closely inspect for holes. If you see a lighter colored spot on the trunk, that could be sawdust plugging up a hole and you can try to insert the end of a paper clip, if it goes in then you have an ambrosia beetle hole.
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Thank you for replying! I just checked, I think the bark looks ok (it rained heavily and the coat of surround is gone). There any tiny cobwebs between the leaves and branches, super faint. That’s about all I can see out of the ordinary, except the leaf damage.
For draining, all the trees are on a hill and drain pretty well, as far as I know.
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Good to hear. Perhaps it just received too much water over a short period of time. It should recover as the rains let up and if that is the only issue.
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Just a thought. Have you ever used that sprayer to spray herbicide or any pesticide before used it with Surround this time?
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Some of the newest growth looks okay. It does seem like there was something specfic during that time frame that is affecting the trees. If it was overwatering I would think the new growth wouldn’t look this good this quickly?
I’m not sure where you are…frost maybe? Otherwise my thoughts lean toward what mamuang posted. I’d leave them alone and try to let them naturally recover.
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Good point! I’ve had Immunox in it about a month ago, mixed with Surround for my Golden Delicious. The next round I had Surround and Regalia. This round was just Surround. All the other trees I sprayed seem ok… so maybe it’s something specific to the pawpaws and how they reacted. Hopefully just the water. Thanks for replying!
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I’m in zone 6b or so, Shenandoah region of Virginia. We did have a frost earlier this April, but not in the last couple of weeks. I do hope the new growth continues strong! 
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Yeah if I saw those pics with no other info I would say overwater/root rot.
Very odd!
Chemical residue is a good theory too.
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