Feeling grateful for getting to taste this selection this year! Big Ben, sweet fruity, and almost bubblegum like flavor. Very nice round fruit with an almost yellow color change.
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worth growing PP if only for ZST.
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the chronicle of these two continues
4 and 3 varieties in middle of feb after @treefrogtim forced me to prune them:
early june growth:
now:
crazy.
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Glad theyre growing well for you!
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First Tallahachie fruit tasted: first year fruiting, pretty good, fruity, seems sweeter than the others tasted so far. 23° Brix
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So one of my paw paws dropped all it’s leaves. It’ still scratches green at the tip.
But the base scratches brown. About 2 inches above it’s still green. We think the roots died somehow? What do we think of trying to graft onto a potted plant i can get from my friend to persevere the variety (tropical treat)
Well, one of my dozens of pawpaw seeds sprouted. Squirrel or equivalent came and dig up the nut and ate that and tree died.
Saw a nice big pup from my KLT from Blake. Dug it up and repotted. Looked fine for a month, then that died too.
All my grafts look toast.
Not the year for pawpaws. Though my KLT after looking toast is now taller than me. Going to need to prune it way back this winter.
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Get some rootstock established and then graft, promise itll be better.
For your struggling tropical treat I would get a fresh stem growing strong and regraft later, not a rare selection and scion will always likely be available.
Another benefit of rootstock ready to go is you can get new selections fruiting faster than planting grafted trees.
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Harvested my first KSU Chapellle this week. It lived up to the hype. It was the sweetest pawpaw I have tasted. A tad sweeter than Susquehanna. It has a nice fruity tropical flavor compared with Susquehanna, which can have some unpleasant NyQuil notes in my opinion. It is also quite firm but a little softer than Susquehanna. The one I let ripen a little longer had some caramel notes, which was ok but I definitely like my pawpaws a little less ripe than that. Im definitely going to graft some more branches of it in the spring.
Also had my first taste of ‘Marshmallow’. It was good flavored with decent sweetness kind of in the middle in terms of strength of flavor. It was a bit seedy but still plenty of nice pulp. It was free stone as advertised. Nothing to get excited about but seems like a decent variety.
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Alright pawpaw people, I am getting a bit fed up with these plants. These are seedlings, so I knew they would be slow to establish, but this is their third year and they have made zero noticable progress. Is that normal? I did not plant these for fruit, I planted them because they are native and I like to put native plants in my yard here and there. But they don’t seem to be of much use to the wildlife if they are no bigger than a foot tall. Unfortunately they both suffered some winter damage their first year in ground, and I suspect that might have something to do with the lack of growth.
Would you give them one more year to grow? Do any pruning? Cut them off and graft and cultiar? Any fertilization tips? They are planted in a fairly shady area, but it does get good morning and evening sun. This spot can be kinda wet in the spring and fall and has irrigation during the summer if there is no rain. I have done almost no research on pawpaws as I had not intended to grow these for anything but the wildlife value so I don’t know the right way to take care of them now that they’ve been there for a few years.
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They look healthy. Lack of sun may be hurting vigor. Are they shaded by fencing?
Do you fertilize? Maybe some heavier feeding next spring will help.
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Well… mostly they do grow very slowly the first few years. If those were small with few roots when you planted them, then you’re not too far off of typical growth.
If the first year was kind of a bust because they got damaged, then this is two summers worth of growth. Assuming you started with tiny seedlings that you transplanted, that seems pretty typical. They really need to re-establish roots before they grow well.
Mine are in shade and grow fine, so I don’t think the sun/shade matters too much for growing as long as they’re getting enough sun (mine get dappled sun most of the day) and not too much sun (I have a couple I had to shade or they would have wilted up). You’re already doing the right things with watering them if they’re dry too long.
Fertilizer definitely helps. They actually seem to need calcium and magnesium, so you could make sure they have it and some nitrogen type fertilizer in spring.
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First Tropical Treat fruit tasted side by side an Nc-1. Fist year fruiting.
Tropical Treat: gritty, frutier than nc-1, bitterness at the end. 20° brix.
Nc-1 Smooth, I prefer the taste even when overripe. 20° Brix
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I have to agree. Tropical Treat is one I was really excited for but to me it tastes like an average wild pawpaw.
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That’s a bummer if true
So it’s not more fruity
I’m not a bland melon pawpaw fan
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It’s in Timothy Lane’s top 5 pawpaw fruit. I tried it last year and thought it was good, but it’s hard for me to tell subtle notes between pawpaw flavors (but I don’t remember any gritty texture).
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Treated dying Chappell as you suggested Blake.
Azomite and watered in.
About a month ago, plus or minus.
Happy to see new growth on some of the “dead” limbs.
Thank you very much.
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It does have a little more of mango taste than most it’s just not one I like as much as I thought I would.
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I’ve lost almost every Chappell fruit to cracking and phylosticta. Has anyone else experienced this? It’s one of my favorite varieties but seems prone to lose fruit just before they are ready. I’ve had a little splitting on a few others trees but nothing like Chappell and no other issues with phylostica in the orchard.
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Tim really knows his pawpaws. It’s possible it performs better in his location than mine. It’s not a bad pawpaw but it was one I had high hopes for and was a little let down after trying the fruit. One that I really enjoy that doesn’t get the love it should is KSU Benson.
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