Pawpaw: maybe the literature should be rewritten?

General Fruit Growing
1

The are the most hardy representatives of their botanical family and they like heat for sure but can tolerate coldness. But how cold?
I grow some in my greenhouse and the results are most impressive. The sheet of paper is 8.5 X 11. This specimen is a 3 year-old NC-1

image
image1920Ă—1440 256 KB

But in natural growing conditions, the leave are much smaller:
image
image1920Ă—1440 184 KB

Here a photo of a leaf of a 5 years (almost 6) NC-1 planted spring 2021. It got 3 flowers later on. It has resisted -32,3 C last winter (2021/2022) and got 8 flowers later on. At the time of blooming it was the sole pawpaw in my orchard. Now it has 5 neighbors (but 2 years younger than the NC-1 but of different varieties.

I read many times in different media (books, Internet, interviews) that pawpaws would not tolerate such brutal climate for such a long time but if they are old enough they really seem to be able to survive and prosper. The future looks good for people wanting to grow pawpaws but living close to the North Pole…

Marc

4 Likes
2

Try reading here: https://scholar.google.com/

3

Most nursery state paw paw are hardy to zone 5 so -20. Sometimes plants can take a little damage but if it is repeated cold damage it dies. My tobastco pepper plant handled a few nights in freezing temperatures even withstanding a snow but eventually died.

4

A friend has a couple 20 plus foot trees. Withstood -12 F low one winter.

5

Pa[quote=“Drew51, post:4, topic:47210, full:true”]
A friend has a couple 20 plus foot trees. Withstood -12 F low one winter.
[/quote]

Pawpaw have survived -31 in Central Kentucky and -35 in Cincinnati, OH in 1985.

1 Like
6

It must have been cold here those years too. I have seen wild paw paws here. The 20 footers are wild. The only paw paws I have eaten are from those trees and yes they are excellent.Very large fruit too.

3 Likes