I don’t know if this is useful to you at all but I know Chappell in particular has been known to be susceptible. I only have 2 pawpaw trees and my Chappell appears to be suffering from phyllosticta. I’m going to see how it handles things on its own, I won’t intervene unless the tree looks to be dying.
The link below also says Shenandoah is somewhat susceptible but in my own experience, it’s not showing any issues with that at all. I’m going to be selecting only the most resistant cultivars moving forward because I like things as spray free as I can get.
Is this that disease mentioned above?
I saw it on a Petrichor#4 graft on a strong rootstock sucker and was disappointed as I thought the strong rootstock sucker would push out a lot of strong growth. I do you see some dieback on the tip of the graft.
I could be off the mark because I’m not super experienced yet with pawpaw but that looks very similar to when I put some seedlings I got from a nursery in direct sunlight. The sunscald looked similar to that. Maybe try a little shade and see if it improves. In my case, they defoliated and grew back. A shame they died during the winter because those were hardy little things.
I have definitely seen it. My small Chappell crop looks ok so far, but I have definitely seen it happen just as much with Susquehanna. I think that susceptability is somewhat heritable, so I would be cautious of breeding work focused soley on that line…part of it is avoiding stressing the trees as much as possible, but no one planted pawpaws thinking of them as a high maintence crop! Irrigation, mulch, some level of shading depending on soil/site/lattitude, heat units to ripen fruit, soil nutrition, etc
Let me know how it goes as they ripen. We’ve had a very wet summer but with several long dry spells. My trees aren’t mulched and don’t get watered or babied much. I could probably have prevented some of this with better care. So far I’ve had splits on about 90% of Chappell and most others were ruined by black blotches on 1/2 the fruit. I’ve had a little splitting on Wabash but not as bad.
I don’t add anything beyond very deep, wide mulch but trees get shade from mid afternoon on, don’t know if that helps. In sandy, droughty soil so not ideal that way. Correction: in spring I broadcast around dripline a pelletized organic fertilizer and rake it into top layer of mulch, preferably before a big rain.
I think it might be a good rootstock worst case. Similar to how people report Mango being great as rootstock for other cultivars and potentially adding some vigor to whatever is grafted on. I’m still personally leaning towards adding PA Golden #3, unless I find something else I like the taste of more. Hopefully my local festival has more options so I can sample as much as possible.
Dutchess County NY Z6A…been very lucky so far…only one minor incidence of Phyllosticta on my Chappell in 7 years here and only after a long drought which stressed the tree…one cracked fruit but due to rapid water take up just before ripening after thorough watering to relieve the drought…no mulch / fertilizers / soil amendments…Beemster
Chappell is prone to phylosticta. If it’s bad in your area, you may want to spray sulfur or anti fungals. Was your local climate extremely wet this summer?
About flavor and quality, a few things should be kept in mind regarding pawpaws and this is also true for likely any other fruit.
The 1st year a tree produces a crop, the fruit quality will be inferior to the quality on the tree as it ages.
Some years excess rain, drought, insects, disease can all affect flavor and brix. Seed weight also can vary per fruit evaluated. That’s why we go for averages.
Some cultivars will shine in one region and not be that great in another (Rappahanock as a classic example).
Fruits can even vary based on the placement on the tree due to shade, etc. Neal Peterson reports this is his experience.
It takes multiple years to evaluate true consistent quality. I have one experimental selection (of many) that was delicious one year and mediocre the next year. This will be it’s 3rd year in testing and should give me more of an idea of consistency. Also could be due to weather factors.
Terroir as the French call it, or the effects of soil, climate and region all impact flavor and quality. If your soil is depleted or insufficient for maximum performance, the fruit will also be lackluster. So, it may not be the variety but your soil and local climate.
So, don’t be too hasty to judge a fruit based on a single taste test or two the first year. Over time you can evaluate it more fully and can judge it based on your own preferences. Most pawpaws don’t vary that crazy much one from the other, it’s mostly just relatively minor differences in texture, seed weight, subtle taste variations, size and sweetness. There are exceptional ones that are of a higher caliber for sure and that’s what I try to focus on these days in my work.
These days it seems there is a lot of obsession that a pawpaw variety should just absolutely blow your mind and if it doesn’t than it is a failure. It’s amusing but also unrealistic.
In my case, it has not only been wet, this has been the most rainfall in entire recorded history, up to this point in the year. I figure I’ll wait for less challenging conditions hopefully next year and see how it does. Sitting at roughly 36.5 inches of rainfall so far, normally the entire rainfall for the whole year is just over 40 inches. This has been an exceptional year, Shenandoah loves it and my persimmons really are loving it.
This was our situation here this summer. It rained every other day for a total of 30-40 inches from April-August. It was a solid litmus test for phylosticta in my orchard.
