Here’s an example of what I see occasionally. Seems likely the same.
while fertilizing my trees today i remembered that one of my trees “burst” open last year. i posted about it on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pawpaws/comments/1fu84gn/one_of_my_small_trees_burst/
this wound is facing east, not south or west, and it showed up in the summer afaict. here it is today:
there was a little pill bug up in the top of the wound. i dont think that was caused by the bug and was just a coincident. the tree is leafing out now. which is much earlier than it and my other did last year. do this look like its on the up n up and healing well from whatever happened?
as an aside, i was gifted these trees from the arbor day foundation. i had emailed them and asked if they were named varieties but they said no. it does look that it was grafted though 
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Idk id probably stump it tbh. It may or may not fully heal.
Where it “looks grafted” seems like the top had some type of issue so a bud below the damage took over as the central leader.
Big believer in the power of pawpaws ability to regenerate(if it is healthy) and if it’s not healthy enough to make a new stem it probably wouldnt make it long term anyway.
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by stump you mean, kill it or cut it off below the injury and graft onto it? it has a few branches above that i need to park some scion on so im not sure i want to do either of those options just yet.
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Just cut it flush with the ground or below any damage. Keep in mind if the tree has a virus and you use it as a scion parking lot you are risking infecting the scion.
But it could be something else entirely, just something to keep in mind.
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I’ve had big splits like that on my apple trees that have now fully healed up. After reading, it was probably just caused by overfertilization (they were in the filter strip next to the calf lot), maybe the same thing with your pawpaw?
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i do fertilize them but it wouldnt cross my mind that it was over fertilization. its probably under fertilized. who knows though. maybe i got heavy handed that day 
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Strange. Probably not sunscald if it’s on the east side. Cicadas maybe?
all i know is that it was quick. i was hand watering them a few times a week and have pictures a couple months prior that didnt show any damage.
Are you in C/E IA? Looks like you had brood XIII last year. I don’t get cicadas here so I have no direct experience with them.
nah i would be in the brood iii, central iowa. the other pawpaw tree 8ft away had no issues.
Well those are rough boundary estimates.
But yeah, that summer damage pic appears to be a different cause.
Pardon the awful pic, but is the green part just leftover stigma? Or is it potential fruit(it’s already fallen off after this pic was taken, just curious the stages)
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It’s my first year growing them, but it seems that if they didn’t get pollinated the whole thing usually turns black and falls off. If they did either the green thing or whatever structure is under the goopy things above it grows into fruitlets.
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Yes that green part is what develops into fruit if successfully pollinated. Typically the peduncle (flower stem) becomes more straightened, perpendicular to the branch, on successful flowers. But regardlesss with patience it will be apparent when you see baby banana-like fruitlets.
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Gotcha, sounds like mine either got knocked off or wasn’t successful.
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6 of 8 grafts took. 4-25 lived up to its reputation. Maria’s Joy was the other loser.
I just regrafted that one with Bennys Favorite.
The rest are now out of the tent and getting hardened off before planting.
I will put them under 50% shade.
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My grafts from last year are waking up. 4-25 is slow, but it’s waking. The seedlings are waking as well, but I’m still a couple of weeks from grafting…especially with raw rain on the way next week.
On the agenda for grafting are garage west, big ben (many thanks), Susquehanna, tropical treat, and regulus. I even found an old stick of central in the fridge from last year that I never grafted. It actually still has green cambium so I may try it as an experiment.
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I have a real nice fruit set on susquehanna this year. Many clusters have 4-5 fruits. I think i probably need to thin but cant find solid info on acceptable fruit load per tree or cluster. Any suggestions?
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