The trees are waking up rapidly in this weather. Almost 90° right now. Flowers are maturing through the female stage on Chappell and Potomac while Tallahatchie and Al Horn buds are starting to enlarge.
The young Atwood I planted last fall looked dried up and dead, but there may be a hint of growth pushing from the bottom node above the graft. So we’ll see. For some reason Atwood and Shenandoah always want to die here.
I would try planting in spring. I lost a Chappell planted in autumn but kept two Atwoods planted in spring. Maybe also you should provide some protection during the initial winter.
I think it’s just bad luck. I planted about 10 in the fall and most are fine. Voles were tunneling around the Atwood…not sure if they messed with the roots. I grafted it 2 years ago so it was ready to go in. We had been in a drought during the summer so I didn’t plant in June like I wanted. But after a few good fall rainstorms I planted them.
We had plenty of snow to insulate the ground and the coldest it got was only -6°F too.
So the Atwood is alive. It’s pushing some microscopic growth out of the 2024 buds. So it appears all 31 grafted trees in the field made it through winter.
I made a bunch of grafts to pawpaw 4/9-4/11. I was starting to lose hope. Two Chappell’s had leafed out, but that was it. They got their very new young tender leaves frozen off 5 days ago ( I’m hoping they bounce back).
I went out of town for three days and it’s been very hot. Today, when I got back almost all the grafts have started growing!!!
Also, my Atwood graft from last year that had it’s leaves frozen off in April started growing new leaves. So happy!
My pawpaws are just starting to wake up, smaller trees though. Buds are swelling somewhat. Prima 1216, VE-21 and Naomi delicious have started to leaf out. Definitely too young for flower buds. Persimmon are just starting bud swell and jujube are still dormant (usually last to leaf out).
My wife says that I live my life like a series of scientific experiments. Today’s experiment is an attempt to hand-pollinate a pawpaw.
My Allegheny, planted in 2018, has a ton of blooms. The Tropical Treat that I planted next to it died, partly because large trees fell on it in a storm. So the Allegheny has no close pollinator.
Roughly 100 yards away, I planted Wabash and Sunflower in 2022 as well as KSU Atwood in 2025. So far, only Sunflower has bloomed. I think Sunflower would have produced a decent number of blooms if I had not pruned it so aggressively, trying to create a good structure. But since I had pruned, Sunflower produced only two blooms. One was very early. I probably wasn’t paying close enough attention a few weeks ago to use it properly. The second was quite late. By then I was paying attention – Roughly a week ago, I began checking daily. Today, there was pollen
Here’s the Sunflower tree and the blossom:
Here’s a close-up of the blossom. Note the pollen:
Here’s Allegheny. This late, it was a challenge finding what appeared to be receptive females.
BTW, those logs in the background came from the trees that killed Tropical Treat.
Finally, here’s the blossom with a brush. There’s some pollen on the tip of the brush but unfortunately the image is blurry.
I pollinated roughly a dozen flowers, every one I thought might be receptive. I’d be happy if I get a half dozen fruits. Fingers crossed.
FYI last week I grafted scions of Sunflower and Wabash to Allegheny. So next year or the year after I may be able to let insects do the work.
In fairness, the pollination reported above was my third try this year – but it was the only one in which I felt competent. That said, there were two others – one using an earlier flower from my own Sunflower, one using a flower mailed to me by a friend.
I think that one of those earlier attempts may have succeeded. See pics below. These show two of five flowers that seem (???) to exhibit elongation that happens after pollination. LMK what you think.
Edit: Update 05/27 (1 week later). Most of the baby pawpaws, plus some new ones, seem to be holding. They are slowly getting longer and wider, separating slightly. I know it’s early for a victory celebration, but I remain cautiously optimistic.
Yep! that worked. That’s what mine looked like (last year or before frost killed them this year).
I grafted some left over scion wood I had on some semi hardwood growth from this year. Has anyone had any luck this way before? I had to be real careful not to snap the root stock branches this way.
Better off just going down to wood, but you might have better luck than me. I only tried it once.
@jrd51 still early to be sure but youll be able to tell soon enough.
Is there a certain kind of brush recommended for hand pollinating? Small, flat tipped, non synthetic? I’m paranoid I’m losing too much pollen on the brush before I get it in the female flower.
it’s been years and i feel so far behind everyone with my little trees. i get envy. (it’s even worse with amer. persimmons though)
pawpaws during their one hour of sun a day.
Was the spot with 1 hour of sun the only spot you could plant them?
They thrive in full sun, pending you take care of them with shade and water the first couple of years
as soon as they get to 4 feet tall they’ll get full sun
that fence only shades the ground really. if they would grow they would get to the light. they seem to have barely grown at all, despite yearly fert and plenty water and misting them like babies in the dryest month.
Where are they from? I have some trees from some nurseries that crawl for years.
one is from a seed! i grew that one out 3 or 4 years ago. another from burnt ridge (i think?). and another sent to me from @Osteen . that is the healthiest of them.
i had 6, or so, from various places and from the seed i germinated that one year. this is what’s survived.
I was using one that I got from a ten pack at the dollar store. It seemed to work well.
One of the things I realized was that the flowers that have the pollen are older. The ones you’d pollinate are younger. When I started using the older flowers to collect pollen I got a lot more pollen.
I held a little tupperware under the flower and jabbed the painbrush (gently) around the edge of the round thing that’s got the pollen on it. lots of pollen fell off into the tupperware and also sometimes some brown flower parts that hold the pollen.
Then, i could dip back in my tupperware when I went to brush on the flowers.
They grow really slowly at first. I was going to guess that the big one was 3 years old. That’s about how big my three year old trees are.
It will probably start to really grow this year. I think they take a lot of time putting down roots, then they start growing for real.
I bought about a dozen small camel hair brushes, and a pretty good price on Amazon
