I believe the Anderson bands are polypropylene and made in Oregon. The Stuewe deepots and tree pots are both made in China. I’ve worked in the plastic industry before and know a cheap, reprocessed black HDPE when I smell it.
I’ll probably swing them an email of concern, but I think I’ll look elsewhere in the future. Either some form of airpots or getting away from plastic altogether. Plastic is a mess.
Ah, ok. That could be the difference.
Yeah, I don’t love plastic. I’m mostly ok with durable, reusable pots and plug trays that I can pot up into something else. I am trialing out a few brands of fiber pots this year as well. I just wish they had something in the tree pot or plant band form factor that’s compostable and suitable for retail sales. If the fiber pots work out ok, I might try using the Zipset bands for grafting, then potting up to a nicer fiber pot for final grow out and sale.
Was my experience with the stuewe pots 8 years or so ago too. Gross.
Final report on my pawpaws that had flowers/fruitlets: apparently, none of the flowers were pollinated, so I will hold out hope that NEXT year I might get some fruit from one or both trees.
I sure hope so!
That’s very curious. I just remembered that my friend also got a case of the treepots as well, and I don’t recall any particular odor (or no more than any other freshly-opened plastic product) when we used them. That doesn’t speak well to there QA/QC if a) it’s happened at multiple times and b) it’s variable enough that two cases purchased by different people in the same year have different levels of noticeable off-gassing. Which is a shame, because the physical design itself is fantastic.
I purchased 3 cases of the circular 14" deepots a couple years ago and they were fine. Sounds like a hit or miss.
with smaller seedlings and plants in ground how often and heavily should I feed them, I do not want to burn them but I want to power them up as much as they’d like.
Use organics like blood meal, Espoma blends, or compost. You can feed quite a bit and never burn them. On my persimmons, early indication it’s that a fall application of blood meal does more good than a spring application (but both is even better). I expect the pawpaws will tell me similar, but they are still getting up to full speed on this season’s growth.
I did a high nitrogen fish fertilizer on them about a few weeks ago. was thinking of doing some saturated straw at the drip line or, the dry 10/10/10 all around them. I do have some compost but it’s not a lot or very good- funds and time were limited for me during that season
Did 8 grafts today. 5 unreleased cultivars in pots and 3 in the field including Shenandoah, Nyomi’s, and Florence White. I still have another 12 varieties to go.
Was that the first year of flowers? Pawpaw are notorious for having a year of practice flowers. I’d expect a few next year.
No, it was my second year. There were more flowers this year than last year.
good thinking, usually it gets added to the compost pile!
Has anyone seen this on a pawpaw? My most vigorous tree, a few feet tall on year 3, and it grew great last season. This spring, only one branch budded out weakly, and then has started looking sick without really growing:
All the other stem tips look dead or dormant:
Meanwhile, new buds are appearing all along the trunk, luckily above the graft at least:
It didn’t get that cold (about 15°F on coldest night of the winter), and it’s on a slope with good drainage, mulched with wood chips just like the other two pawpaws (which are not showing this issue).
Any ideas?
I gave away most named varieties , but i do have a bundle of 10 sticks of 2-3 diff varieties of pawpaw scionwood of non-released varieties an acquaintance crossed (here is my buddy: Ted the Pawpaw Fanatic – Philadelphia Orchard Project) . No info yet, but i should have more info from him at some point in the summer (Im guessing one of parents is Sunflower since has word Sun in the names but i could be wrong). Anyone interested? Scion is maybe 2x pencil sized so may need to use other types of grafts for them like Z graft or modified whip and tongue.
Note: they are prob not super early ripeners so maybe need to be Zone 6b/7a and higher since def grow here, hour north of Philadelphia.
If you also need persimmon wood like Lehman’s Delight or Ruby, i can prob include 10 scion as well of persimmon in same shipment.
I’ve had some of mine do that. Is that above the graft? If so you’re lucky. Most of my random deaths die completely above the graft…delayed graft failure? All of my Susquehannas have died like this. I’m growing out seeds from a Susq now to graft a scion into in the future. Hopefully the similar genetics help it survive.
Edit…should’ve read all of the way. I see you said it’s above the graft now. What variety is that?
Well that’s interesting! This is a Susquehanna.
But yes, it’s coming back above the graft at least. Very odd.
Thats so strange, where did you all source your Susquehannas? I wonder if theres some kind of issue with the rootstock seed source not having enough vigor or something. I have a Susquehanna that I got bare root from Nolin River years ago, and one from Stark Bros. The Stark bros tree produced fruit on its 3rd leaf, but the bare root tree is in much poorer soil and has not produced yet. Not seen any dieback issues though.
