Hey everyone, sorry I haven’t been around much. Back to school and busy at work blah blah blah.
My Pennsylvania pawpaw looks ill,. Yellowish. It has been this way for about two months.
It produced one group of 4 pawpaws but doesn’t seem to have grown any. All the grafts took and grew but they all have the same yellowish tone.
The pawpaw right next to it looks great, green and vibrant.
Any advice moving forward would be appreciated.
When was the last time it got some fertilizer?
The trunk looks sunken in. Perhaps it experienced some form of damage and part of the living bark died.
In the spring, just when it was waking up. I fertilize the orchard just that one time, and add compost in the fall.
I agree it looks like a nitrogen problem, but none of my other trees look poor like this.
You can try to give it a little Nitrogen to see if the leaves turn greener.
You think now is a good time Tony? Not too late in the year?
All my paw paw trees got a monthly dose of the lawn fertilizer from our lawn fertilizer company. I think the last application of the year is sometime in October. So far the last 8 years they can handled it with no issue. You can give it a little.
I will tonight, Thanks Tony.
It looks a lot like a graft union to me. Almost like it was a whip and tongue graft and the scion grows more vigorously than the seedling rootstock. Not sure what the lower ring is about though.
If it was sick, I’d think it wouldn’t have made such large leaves on the last growth (or any growth of the season for that matter). It probably just wants more N like Tony suggests. Maybe scale the amount of N you add based on the size of the tree? If you gave the small one the same amount of fertilizer it stands to reason that the big one would have used it up faster.
Bark injury: could that be “Southwest Injury” from winter sun damage? If it’s on the south or southwest side of the trunk, then I would paint bottom three feet of trunk with white interior latex paint (straight or mix 50/50 with water).
Let’s hope it’s just in need of nitrogen.
However, the apparent canker, chlorotic leafs, lack of shoot growth fits with " vascular decline syndrome " read page 375.
Don’t want to get you to worried here, just something to keep an eye on.
Hopefully it will perk right up, I think next year you will know ?
I agree that you can see a triangle shape like a whip and tongue. Maybe that sunken area is from a trunk protector that was left on too long several years ago. I don’t specifically remember being like, "oh no, I forgot to take this thing off, " but it could have happened none the less.
I am going to feed it tonight and hope for better growth next year.
thanks
hmmm, the smaller healthy tree is a sapling, not a graft. That article says there could be a graft incompatibility so it is possible, especially since the graft union looks wonky.
Again, the trees around it all look health and fine. The closest apple tree, ten feet away had about three feet of growth.
Hopefully , Tony is right, as usual …needs more nitrogen.
It would not be uncommon for a pawpaw tree to look like yours, with inadequate nitrogen.
It’s “that canker” that has my attention .
I have had south west injury on pawpaw, where the bark splits in a straight line up from the ground, sometimes several feet.
Also have had some turn yellow ,late summer and die.
But , have not had the typical cankers , like they had in Corvallis . I am watching for this,
Pic’s of cankers here…
http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/PDF/postman03.pdf
This is my worst nightmare .
@Hillbillyhort I’m glad you brought this up, as this is something all pawpaw growers should be aware of. Since last year I’ve noticed some canker-like vertical cracking symptoms on some of my pawpaws, not unlike those on Jim’s tree, and wonder if it might be related to vascular decline—though, of course, I really, really (really) hope not! Two seedling trees (given me as a gift several years ago, and I believe purchased from Empire Nursery in MO via Ebay) and two grafted trees have shown such cracking. In one case (NC-1), minor, canker-like cracks resembling those in the above-cited article are present on the trunk and some of the scaffold branches. In another (Sunflower), only one branch seems affected, though quite extensively. One of the seedling trees displays very severe cracking on the trunk but no symptoms on the scaffold branches. Another has symptoms only on some of the scaffold branches. None of the trees has displayed chlorosis or wilting—even during this very dry and hot weather, now approaching drought conditions. The one with the trunk lesions has been a very slow grower, but is otherwise healthy. The others have been very strong growers this year. The lesions themselves themselves do not seem noticeably worse this season.
Some of this could, of course, be a response by the tree to damage. The cankered-looking branch on Sunflower, for instance, took damage from a lawnmower a couple of seasons ago. And I believe the one with the badly cracked trunk was damaged by rabbits in the same year. As concerns the other two, I can think of no particular damage.
Here are a few pics. (Pardon the quality; it was sunny out and I had a hard time seeing my phone display!)
Cracking on trunk and an adjacent branch on NC-1:
Cracking on an upper branch of one of the Empire Nursery trees:
Severe canker-like cracking on trunk of another of the Empire trees:
Could’ve very well been planted too deeply.
Dax
Two of my 3 trees have a canker at the base. So far one is producing well. Both seem healed over, but leaves look a bit stressed. The worse off one was planted in 2014 and is 3ft tall still. The one that is affected but still producing was planted in 2016 and is 10ft tall. If yours does not girdle, i say fertilize heavy to see if vigor can overcome it. They love N.
Yah that was my intention,… To make people aware of this.
At Corvallis they lost 1/2 of their grafted trees to this in 5 yrs,
Then pulled the rest.
Since we don’t know “what " this really is, ?
We don’t want to be passing " it” around !
Now a similar ( ? )syndrome is reported in N.C. And Maryland .so let’s be carful here, pay attention.
Lots of people are planting / trading pawpaws lately .
We don’t want to ruin such a good thing.
Probably should not trade scions from trees with suspicious cankers, yellowing leafs , etc
I agree 100%. I’m hoping that what I’m seeing is no big deal and that the trees can continue to thrive with good feeding. Still, can’t be too careful----especially when it could affect someone else. I’d heard about the reports from MD and NC; it’s very worrisome.
Wow… that is super, super subtle if it is a disease. It sure looks like just typical cracking you get in fast growth years to me. If you scratch it is the cambium/wood bluish like that publication suggests?
Agreed that there is something clearly wrong in the split trunk tree, though. But even then it is forming what appears to be healthy callous tissue. Is that the W/SW side of that tree? (I.e. “southwest” disease?) Edit: oh nevermind it was lawnmower damage. Looks like it is recovering ok.
I just don’t know… I’d need to see high-res color pictures of the Corvallis disease to believe this cracking on branches is a disease. Call me skeptical. Especially if the trees don’t show signs elsewhere of disease - stunted or chloritic growth or wilting.
