Thanks, I will try to warm them up and thaw the soil today. We are heading back down to 20 F tonight!
id be worried a bout freeze-thaw more than just a continuous freeze but maybe thats offā¦
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In Philly, I left mine in bag pots (with ProMixB) outside last year, and freezing didnāt seem to hurt any. The weaker grafts died but most survived fine. But I would be a bit more afraid of colder than freezing temps like 5F happening this week.
Pawpaws in pots can handle some amount of freezing but if the root ball freezes solid for an extended period it kills the tree. A brief freeze seems to be OK. I would bring them indoors to thaw out and put them out again when temps moderate a bit in your area. Make sure they stay watered as drying out AND freezing is a death blow.
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Thanks Blake. Iāll water them well and move them to a warmer spot for tonight. We should start warming here tomorrow.
Itās the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. Susquehanna is high in acetogenins and was used as the primary plant parent used to develop most KSU pawpaws. At the conference, Dr. Pomper gave a convincing argument that our guts absorb something like 10% of the acetogenins in pawpaw. So even in acetogenin rich pawpaws, weāre only absorbing a tiny amount, and the amount needed to do damage to our bodies would necessitate eating hundreds of pounds of pawpaws a day. This was his argument, and I found it compelling.
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Anybody looking at grafting any new or unusual pawpaw cultivars in 2026?
Iāll be doing the new Tom Wahl unreleased selections, the new Peterson hybrid and 308, and a few obscure selections from elsewhere. Including hopefully a new sibling of āFreebyrdā.
If anyone has superior seedlings or good wild finds I would be happy to acquire them.
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If youāve only got pawpaw in your guts.
If you have any fat in your guts it allows for much better absorption
Needless to say, I found his argument far less convincing. Basically no high quality data that satisfies me as a chemist has been produced for pawpaws and acetogenins
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Yes I saw his lecture, sounds reasonable. Itās very strange to see them put up numbers for many cultivars but not a single KSU entry. Their silence speaks volumes so theyāre fooling anyone.
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Right, but if youāre only consuming pawpaws then the argument is absorption of acetogenins is very minimal and not enough to cause harm. If you mix pawpaw with other foods the result could be different. That doesnāt change the facts he was proposing regarding absorption of acetogenins from pawpaw only.
I still think pawpaws should be consumed in moderation, but the hysteria around acetogenins is likely just that. Alcohol does much more damage to your brain than eating pawpaws ever would. Hell, putting a baby or child in front of a screen does serious neurological damage. Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development: An Updated Review and Strategies for Management - PMC
Anybody bitching and fear mongering about acetogenins better not be drinking alcohol or giving phones and tablets to children.
Add guacamole as avocados contain neurotoxic persin.
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There are other threads about acetogenins and I would like to defer people to those threads. You can go and argue neurotoxins on those threads.
Anybody looking at grafting any new or unusual pawpaw cultivars in 2026?
Iāll be doing the new Tom Wahl unreleased selections, the new Peterson hybrid and 308, and a few obscure selections from elsewhere. Including hopefully a new sibling of āFreebyrdā.
If anyone has superior seedlings or good wild finds I would be happy to acquire them.
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very interested in how the hybrids turn out. Extremely curious what the flavors are like, have you had a chance to taste any?
Iām still very curious about the varieties the ohio pawpaw growers org has, āhorchataā āgros michelleā
I need to infiltrate it to try and grab some
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I havenāt tried any of those I mentioned. Iām also curious about āGros Michelleā. Anybody got any info on the Ohio Growers group?
I am also very interested in these. I believe they are triloba x parviflora right? Are they backcrossed at all or 50/50? Do they exhibit more triloba or parviflora habits ie growth rate, flower size, fruit size? I know you might not have these answers now, but I look forward to your findings in the future.
One of my seedling parvifloras flowered at about a foot and a half tall last year, interesting to see if the hybrids also have faster seed to bloom time (or graft to bloom).
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Could you tell more about this obscure selections ?
Petersonās newest selection is this hybrid. Iām not sure what the merit is currently but he likes it. Weāre unsure just yet the cold tolerance but it can handle zone 6 apparently.
308 is another new selection he selected mainly for larger, showier flower production and it produces āprolificallyā decent fruit as well according to him. 308 he named āKanawhaā.
Iāll ask him about it.
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ā¦.well, I can eat only one large and perhaps two small pawpaws a dayā¦ā¦and thatās for a limited timeā¦ā¦ā¦plus, my neurons are all screwed up alreadyā¦..so, at my ageā¦.what?.. me worry?ā¦ā¦Beemster
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Blake, do you provide cut-end wax sealing and insulated packaging for your papaya grafting scions before shipping? Iām planning to purchase papaya scions in the winter of 2026.
Are you taking about Papaya or Pawpaw?
I know sometimes people refer to papayas as pawpaws in tropical regionsā¦ but assume you really mean pawpaws.
Also wax sealing is a bit overboard. Sure itās very fancy and nice when someone does it, doesnāt matter much if they donāt. I wouldnāt stop from buying scionwood if they donāt. The drier end is mostly coming off anyway when cutting cleft or whip n tongues
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my experience as well.