For cheap real estate? Try southern WEST VIRGINIA maybe. You could probably even buy an abandoned mall for $50,000 dollars. Once coal mines closed, most other things closed too.
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I second your idea to leave the seedlings ungrafted. My best tasting pawpaw is a seedling from good parents sold to me by Edible Landscaping. You might have the next greatest pawpaw discovery right there in your seedlings. This is exactly the kind of experimentation and grow-out we need more of. Well done.
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Hambone is right, I would take the best ones and pot them up. Just start potting up everything you want at the new house and let it hang out till the time arrives. Instant orchard.
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So I started some pawpaw seeds in a plastic coffee container in my window and they are now putting out their tap root… I’m not going to be able to plant them until next spring at the earliest and I don’t have room for a set up outside of tree pots, so they would need to stay inside…
Has anyone grown them in 2L soda bottles with the bottom drilled out and top cut off? I don’t want to buy a big pack of tree pots when I only need a few. Unless anyone else has suggestions on random at home items that work well for the long tap root.
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The late John H. Gordon opined, back in the 1990s, that if he were 30 years younger, he would select the largest-leaved seedlings of superior named-variety pawpaws for outplanting, rather than planting out grafted specimens.
Two things… I - and others - have experienced a fairly high incidence of delayed graft failure in outplanted pawpaws… leaving one with just the seedling rootstock; and… seedling pawpaws often seem to have fruit quality similar to that of the ‘mother’ tree… certainly if the seed is of named cultivars, pollenized by other improved selections, there’s a good likelihood that those resulting seedlings will have good to excellent fruit quality.
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That’s the way I usually do it,if there are no large treepots available.
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A friend went hiking and came back with some wild pawpaw last Fall, she gave my wife a couple of fruits. After eating them, I potted up some seeds and saw most of them came up a month or so ago. I don’t have any deep pots so the 2L soda bottles sounds like a great idea, though the thoughts of dumping out the soda just to get the emptied bottles goes against my frugality…lol
btw, how old should the seedlings be before they are graft-able? and should the seedlings be planted inground before or after they’re grafted.
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It depends on growing conditions, genetic etc. but I would say 2-3 years.
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Who’s starting NA Pawpaw seeds this year?
I collected seeds from:
Betra, Gatria, Halvin, NC-1, Overleese, Pag II, PA Golden, Pontimac, Prolific, Rap, Taylor, Tay-two, some mystery fruit and some wild.
I’m a little concerned because some of the bags of seeds have a little mold on them. Not a lot, but still. I’m planning on trying plant them on Sunday. I will wash them with some soapy water first. Or should I use proxide?
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I’ve often done a scrub followed by quick dip in 1/10 bleach. It works well.
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Thank you for the reminder! I knew that I read that folks were cleaning them with something, I just couldn’t remember what. I’ll use the bleach solution.
i started some less than a month ago in a clear tote and i need to pull the rooted ones and pot them:
btw what does “NA Pawpaw” mean?
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Since the papaya is also called a pawpaw, there is a push in some circles that I am in to call pawpaws native to parts of North America “North American Pawpaws”, therefore NA is short for North American.
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The ones I planted I just rubbed them under some water before planting them. I didn’t use any cleaner etc. The wet paper towel they were in did have some black mold spots.
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I’ve got seed to start this year again, sunflower and another attempt at Susquehanna.
they’re in 2 gallon deep pots, bagged for humidity, on a heat mat in the greenhouse this time. I just put them in the past week so it’ll be May by the time I see anything I’m sure.
the pots I’m using are basically round tall containers for sauce from a restaurant, I’ve cut holes in the bottom for drainage and the top sliced off. they’re 18" tall.
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look at these guys!
this one is pushing for redundancy:
i marked it to track and see what happens later.
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after these were started in 4x16 “fig pop” bags, i just up-potted them to proper tree pots and this is where that guy is at now:
maybe ill hold onto it for the long haul 
i wont be starting the sprouts in bags again. the transition from these long bags wasnt as bad as i thought it was going to be. i tested it on half the batch a month or so ago and i dont think they missed a beat.
instead of doing shad cloth on them, these just had a milk crate placed on top of the other crate they are in and a brick on top. i originally did it to keep rabbits out but they didnt seem to mind that much sun getting through. ive also got some just up against the north side of the house and they look good. maybe that is enough light as well 
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