wow!…….is this just natural unassisted pollination?
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I’ve seen some of that cracking near the original graft unions on my larger trees. But yeah, I’ve also had some vascular wilt (BSD) and cankers on the N and E sides of trees during overly wet years.
Pawpaws are a clonal tree too so it’s nothing for them to abort a stressed tree and send up suckers to renew. That’s why it would be great if we could get cultivars growing on their own roots.
Maybe someday.
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Dutchess County NY Z6A..…..just had 6 days of very warm weather….hit 90F one day……GDD 50F went from 78 to 189 in 6 days……..asian pears and sweet cherries sprinted into full bloom…..now below average temp. are forecast for the next 6 days with GDD 50F increasing just 13 to 202….can’t see how all this is good for the normal state of affairs….still looking at GDD 50F of 250 for bloom…but who knows when?……we’ll see
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MOS has 27° for POU Tue morning…low 20s up here. Thankfully the pawpaws are still dormant and only my large unknown pear and crabapple are starting to break bud. The forsythia just bloomed the other day.
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Yeah!
yep….27F forecast….pawpaw blossoms not even close….but likely bad for the pears and cherries……..actually, would not mind losing 90% of the pears that pollinate because they always over pollinate….without thinning you get golf ball sized fruit and broken limbs….can’t catch a break with the cherries….another year (8th) with few blossoms on my Hudson cherry……maybe 200 on the entire tree…..it’s known to come into bearing late but this is beyond rediculous….it’s on Mazzard rootstock and is about 17 feet tall,….It’s companion Regina is once again loaded with blossoms but is known to have at times pollination issues and 2 different pollinators are recommended..…got perfect blooming overlap but need a lot more blossoms……specifically picked these two for late spring blooming to avoid frosts but did not expect this….the Black Gold I planted 3 years ago to solve the problem did put out a few blossoms this year and the overlap is good……so we will see in in a week or so what happened but I do not expect much if anything…..I must say, sweet cherries are way harder to get good fruit than pawpaws
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Mine normally only have 2-3 per cluster. This year I tried pollinating with a paintbrush.
This has just set fruit and tree is still blooming- I don’t know if some will abort, otherwise now I’ll need to learn to thin!
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VE-21 topworked in 2023 finger thick. Seems like it’s going to make its first crop. Interestingly these seem like the largest fruitless so far. It could be that it can mature faster with a much smaller fruit load, but we’ll see. If it continues this pattern over the years it may explain how this cultivar ripens much earlier.
The Chappell next to it was grafted in 22, but gets slightly more shade, also seems to be setting some fruit for the first time. It has been vigorous the whole time and is much larger than VE-21.
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You’re in Z5? That’s a question few of us are prepared to answer since few people grow pawpaw in such cold conditions. But my intuition based on what I’ve seem in. Z7A is that you shouldn’t give up hope yet.
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Nope. Pawpaw are strange and they seem to bloom more slowly over a longer period.
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ya im in z5a/b. wasnt sure if the leafing out on the rest of the tree and little leaf buds pushing below the flower buds meant that they are past due. ill keep an eye on em.
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I have zero vegetative growth yet, but some flower buds are swelling. Is it a young tree? Are these your first flower buds?
tree is like ~5 years + but was grafted last year.
In my zone7a they just woke up a week ago, you still have a few weeks before I’d call it. Mine started with little buds like that too and eventually leafed out
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Dutchess County NY Z6A….26F forecast Tuesday morning….41F already at 7PM Monday….I think it hits 24F with clear skies and light winds……likely will lose all the pear and cherry blossoms…….will evaluate things tomorrow afternoon……bummer……Beemster
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…about 10 miles south of me
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is this KSU atwood a gonner? we had a 33 degree night and i guess all its leaves died. seems a bit cold tender for a paw paw. its still really small so might be why. i didnt even consider protecting it. my figs didnt even get damaged and they were unprotected too
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I bet it will come back. My pawpaw leaves and fruitlets all froze last night and will turn black and drop off.
But it’s happened once or twice a year, every year and then they start up again.