So much is based on soil type and local climate. But pawpaws should never be allowed to get dry. 1 inch of rain or equivalent irrigation per week all spring and summer is standard.
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Planted my KSU seedlings. They may not sprout but at $1 per it was worth a shot.
Plan to move my seeds outside today or tomorrow. They may not make it but oh well.
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I see something like Blue Stem Disease cracking on 2 branches of a Stark Select Seedling about 8 or 10 years old. It surprised me, had not seen any similar branch death ever in my six trees.
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Did it kill only one branch and the rest of the tree appears healthy?
Crossing my fingers because one of my grafts from last year has a couple flower buds and I’d love to be able to cross pollinate my clonal stand this year. I topworked a bunch of it, but only this little Halvin graft has flower buds.
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It killed one lower branch last year, which I sawed off and then this spring I see another lower branch also dead that I sawed it off. The rest of the tree appears healthy.
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One of my Susquehanna trees has been making flowers with extra petals….last year there were several that had 2 sets of 4, but this year I found one that has an inner set of 4 and an outer set of 5. Looks a lot bigger too.
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I don’t recall if it was this posting and I didn’t see anything with a quick scroll, but there was a question about pollinating pawpaws. I wanted to share what actually worked for me this year. I have 2 cultivars that I got from a Pawpaw festival some years back. They are about 15ft apart. The 1st year they both flowered and I didn’t get fruit by leaving them to nature. 2nd year I tried hand pollinating with a small paint brush and didn’t get anything again.
This year I wanted to attract flies/beetles and looked at a fly trap my wife bought. The majority ingredients were sucrose and egg solids. Ever since flowers began developing I have been throwing fruit/veggie scraps and unwashed eggshells around them. Looks like it has worked. I have about a dozen flowers like this between the 2 trees. It could be that the trees have matured, but I wanted to share.
Cheers
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I have a Susquehanna seedling that also has odd flowers - I need to investigate and report back.
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Interesting report, thank you!
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I know Timothy at Ockoo uses decomposing fish heads in a bucket hanging in his trees.
I’m a little torn since I have the chickens next to the pawpaw grove. I’d rather not put anything out there that would attract predators. I suppose I could put it out only during the day, but I think I’ll go the chicken poop route.
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If you can get stinkhorn fungus to grow, you’ll have lots of flies 
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I think when i asked Whole Foods, they don’t allow this anymore (i also asked about oyster shells to add to soil). Ill try some local butchers but I wonder if i can just spray Fish Fertilizer onto the trees instead as thats pretty stinky.
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Could this be Blue Stem Disease? Looks a little different from your photos. But similar enough to have me concerned. I’ve had the bark start splitting on this tree a year or 2 ago. Didn’t think much of it in the past but now it looks worse. The tree has had good vigor though.
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When I fertilize my figs in the summer with fish fertilizer, the flies show up quickly. I dont see any reason why that wouldnt work.
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Looks like Vascular wilt / BSD to me, unfortunately
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Some of my @Blake grafted plants that I terribly mistreated last year are nonetheless leafing out — hope more of them make it!
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my taller pawpaws are breaking bud here now, just barely. the one from @Osteen has swollen but not broken bud yet. my seedlings are so so tiny but scratch green at the top so I’m sure they’ll be waking eventually.
all put on some top growth last year but not a lot. I fertilized in the fall and again about a week ago based on this thread, side dressed near them with high N to start the year and will feed them again next month sometime, and stop in late June/early July.
hoping to see some better vegetative growth and height on them- they are in nearly full shade until they get a little bit taller. they have to get to fence height to see full sun.
edit to add: my mini compost pile is nearby, eventually the flies will have an extra job I suppose
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Love seeing that little white radicle(?)!!!
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