I have a small patch of pawpaws which finally got some fruit last year after 8 years in ground. The only one that fruited was the variety Mango, and that’s the only pawpaw I have ever eaten. I loved it though and now I’m very excited to get more. I have 4 trees growing there. The mango is very large and looks great. I had a Sunflower growing next to it, but it had grown below the graft and then the graft died, so it was almost as large as the Mango, but is just the root stock. I recently learned to graft so I chopped most of it down and grafted it to Primo 2 years ago. The graft was very successful and it’s almost 8 feet tall now. My Shenandoah has been very slow growing. It’s barely 6 feet tall after all those years. It was the first to flower though and has flowered for several years now. I also have what was once a PA Golden, but also lost the graft on that one many years ago. It is now a multi-trunked shrub. I’m going to graft that one this year.
I have noticed that there are numerous small pawpaws coming up in the lawn around the trees up to 10 feet away. A couple are in places I would’nt mind having a new tree, so I protected a couple and plan to attempt to graft them this year. Anyone with pawpaw experience, do you think this is a good idea? I’m assuming these are root growth from the mother trees. Should I try to sever the connection to the original plant, or let them be?
They can take a long time to fruit, at least from my experience. I had some sprouts that were five years old and I got sick of waiting and chopped them down last fall. I decided I’d rather grow seeds of my better pawpaws than waste space on some probably crummy rootstock. If they are in a good spot you can always graft something on to them, I’ve done that many times.
I grafted today the seedlings I started in mid November and have been living in a grow tent kept around 80F and high humidity- 16 hours daily of full spectrum LED.
1 quart pots (and two pint pots) painted with Microkote. Promix medium.
The seeds emerged in only 4 weeks.
This is the first time I’ve tried this and I’m somewhat shocked by the results.
you started germinating them in nov after stratifying them?
i brought in some smaller seedlings that i purchased and didnt plant out before winter. the leaves all died off and i wasnt sure if it was because i introduced them to the light of the grow tent led(they were mostly covered by other plants canopy though), a nutrient deficiency or they were just going dormant because they spent a couple weeks in the garage with little light and cooler temps before being brought in.
they basically all did this until they all defoliated:
i wanted to see if i could keep them growing all year round or just see what would happen. anyways, theyve been in there months and havent woke up 
Wow that’s some pretty impressive results. I may have to experiment with this method next year. I have a few 4ft LEDs that emit the wavelengths of the Sun’s visible spectrum.
It’ll be interesting to see how much “push” they get through the grafts this year.
Correct - my fruit starts ripening first of August so I can get 90 days of stratification by end of October.
Regarding your seedlings, that looks more like a nutrient issue than dormancy onset.
As for not waking up, they may need some chill hours to reset their “clocks” - but I’m guessing. Never had your exact situation.
I’ve heard it said by Har Madeem that pawpaws can be kept growing year round.
@weatherandtrees
I mainly did this as a test of the root-pruning effects of Microkote in small/short pots. I had been hearing a lot about root pruning from Jim Dingus so I was inspired. I’ve used Microkote before with good results including “Big Ben” which was started in a band style very small pot with the coating. And it went on to fruit in the 4th year.
I think there may be something to this approach.
The early start and the grow tent was just a bonus part of the experiment.
they look more like they need fertilizer and water
Well for better or for worse my pawpaws are starting to flower, hope we don’t get any freezing nights(zone 8 SC)
What an interesting thread. I’m in the high desert zone 7 (4000 ft) and planted 8 pawpaws. My growing season isn’t very long with our last frost usually the first week of May or so and our first frost generally the second or third week of October. I was inspired by growers having success with pawpaws near Salt Lake City with has almost the same climate as us.
After reading this thread, I’m wondering if my growing season may be too short for some of my varieties. Time will tell I suppose.
So far I have:
Chappelle
Allegheny
Tallahatchi
Rappahannock
Mango
Wabash
Susquehanna
One unnamed seedling
The seedling and Mango have had the most growth. Though I only had about 8” of growth last season from them. The Wabash has been in the longest and while it seems healthy has only grown a couple inches each season. The others were all planted in the fall last year so we will see what they do this spring.
I fertilize and water on the same schedule as my other stone fruits and apples, all of which put on several feet of growth last season. This contrast in growth rate has me concerned that the pawpaws just don’t like it here.
Even the Peterson pawpaws that I had shipped had some questionable flavor after being kinda beaten up. I enjoyed my Sunflower this year better than several of those.
Mango seems to get a bad rep in threads past few years (minus the fast-growth attribute, seems like alot of people says it has a water-y flavor?).
I think its still good in a less-than-ideal location. I’ll try and see if i can spot those off-flavors in the future.
If you like them don’t go looking for faults, enjoy them.
Try pruning a few buds off the ends of the branches. Seems counter intuitive but I think that the mechanical “damage” triggers growth hormones
mine is too . i hope you get tons of fruit
Hmm- so one of my newer seedlings in the ground looked a bit dry so I scratched and didn’t see any green, then did a bend test, and it bent a bit then snapped, so i cut another piece off and scratched, it looks like it has some green, but not in traditional way i’d expect, is this normal for pawpaw or is this a ‘recently dead’ green? I’m thinking frost damage from a while back but maybe someone has more insight.
I don’t have any special insight, but in my general experience shriveled, dry, and brittle means dead. I don’t put much stock in the color.
Yeah that’s not looking good. Probably a goner. Sorry.
May send up a new shoot from the roots I guess.
It’s pretty fresh anyway, I figure I will wait to see if it wakes up either from the graft or before graft, if latter I’ll just graft on it again. If nothing wakes up, I’ll replace!
I have an upcoming night at 28F, and therefore believe it’s too early to plant my kaki persimmon, figs, and jujubes. However, would anyone think it’s too early to plant 1 gallon pawpaws?