My best pawpaw planted from wild seed at least 4 years ago. How it looks today. Look, Mom… branches!
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Very nice! The trees in my picture are looking like they could really uses some rain. I hope the roots grow into the native clay soon enough to keep them going through our summer.
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Did you plant your seeds in ground? I was wondering the same thing- I have a perfect spot where the seedlings would be shaded until they are quite a bit bigger. There is a privacy fence that blocks a lot of light but they would get plenty once they grew over 5’. It seems that it would be easier to plant directly, but I’m wondering if anyone has actually succeeded at that or not.
I’m looking at Cliff England’s site and was thinking for the sake of cost to order 2-3 seeds of three varieties. I only really have space for two trees, but obviously need to hedge my bets. Would anyone suggest ordering more, or have most seeds had good germination rates?
Katie, yes three of my pawpaws are from seeds (sprouted first) planted directly in the ground in late May of 2017, I think. They took a couple months to come up and were quite small when the season ended. They all made it but I removed one a couple months ago because it was so slow growing. I’m not familiar with the seeds from England’s but I’m sure you are aware that the resulting plants from pawpaw seeds would not be considered varieties.
Here’s what the website says about the seeds they have available:
"We can supply and select cultivars that will have a 95% chance of being as large or larger than the parent fruit producer. We offer these seed at a premium price because of the extra work it takes to produce such seeds: controlled crossing and the necessary documentation and care of records.
These Seed represent The Best PAWPAW Genetic Material in the world and will be available until sold out."
Thanks for the description of the seeds. I didn’t realize the pollination was controlled. With seeds like those you could consider growing them in the tree pots the first year and planting them out the following Spring. In my case, I plan to graft over the seeds I planted as the genetics is much more of an unknown.
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I ordered some off Ebay a month ago. The guy just sent them in baggie with paper towel. That is the same method i use for stonefruit/apples/pears/oaks/etc…and it always works ok…out side of some mold from time to time. Just toss them in refrigerator and start checking mid/late winter…spring for some seeds that require very long stratification times…some seeds (cots) are terrible and will start growing in very early winter.
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I figured I’d add my data points to this thread. I’m a novice home orchardist, so most all of my techniques are a first pass.
I acquired my seeds from England’s Nursery last fall. I purchased the Lehman’s Breeder Select, Summer Delight, and KSU Orchard (not the taste test variety) seeds. Several were pre-stratified, but I didn’t end up taking advantage of the over-winter jump start. Everything ended up in pots outside in late April (zone 7a, central Oklahoma). We’re starting to see everything pop up now. Some photos and comments:
‘Unboxing’:
Total inventory-- Summer Delight (24), Lehman’s Breeder Select (92), & KSU (72).
Pre-strat preparation:
I gave the seeds a water bath with a splash of bleach. I moistened some peat moss to use for stratification in the fridge. In general, I followed the process from this Great Escape Farms video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXLGaubNWJc
Close up of the seeds
Stratification:
A few months in, I checked the bags for mold. A few of them had signs, so I gave them a gentle bath with the bleach solution again. Lesson learned-- you really need to ring out that peat moss thoroughly.
In total, I had them in the fridge from Nov-8 through Apr-27. This is longer than you need, but I didn’t have a stable storage location. Mid-April is usually the last frost date around here, so I waited until I could put them outside.
Planting seeds in containers:
I used a mix of compost, peat moss, and perlite. I’m experimenting with various container sizes. The deeper containers are from Pecan trees I bought at a big box store.
I again followed a process outlined by Great Escape Farms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRAtdSQVoGk
Growing in containers:
These are sitting out on the north wall of my house under the eaves. This is the progress from Apr-27 to Jul-3.
All of the pots have signs of life, but this is the furthest along.
A good cross section of seedlings in various stages of development. As others noted, you get the ‘u’ bends first.
I’ll eventually have to repot these and/or direct plant a few. I’m likely to use the procedure that Mandala farms outlined: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtXeqpTqoG8. I’m still not clear on the timing; is repotting in the late summer to early fall preferable? I’ve successfully shocked quite a few American Persimmons as an early test case (about 1/3 fatality rate).
There’s a lot of good information in this thread about containers. My plan is to use some ribbed 4x14 tree pots from Stuewe, but I haven’t acquired anything yet. I noticed England’s trees came in something similar.
Anywho-- thought I’d share.
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Look what happens when you forget about seeds in refrigerator. My friend send me this, he planted some seeds two years ago and this is the leftover.
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I found some growing in the bottom section of my “compost” bin yesterday, they’re destroyed now. They were mostly taproot with a little bit growing upwards.
Obviously, this is just a “yard and kitchen waste rotting bin”. I don’t think pawpaw seeds would be able to live in a hot compost pile.
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Mine have been potted out since april and the first ones are showing leaves. Amazing how slow these things are at leafing out.
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I must agree with you. It is so sloooooow 
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After 2 months seeds finally are showing some progress. At least they are in bags so I will bring them indoors before winter comes. I dont know how much they can grow till then
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Well, six out of 10 seeds sent by KSU are growing. The others have not come up … at least yet.
Some from Wolfe/Powell counties about 80% germinated.
Some others, haven’t done much germination. All were refrigerated…but maybe some got too dry.
All were planted in either April or May this year.
Last year, I planted seeds in July, and have about 5 that made it through winter in 1 gallon containers outside unprotected…zone 6b…despite only coming up in September.
From 2 or 3 years ago I got 15 seeds from England’s. I think five are still surviving, in the original gallon pots I planted the seeds in outdoors in April. Ones from Al Horn survived better than ones from Lehman’s trials. (If they had grown enough to look like they needed a 2 or 3 gallon pot, I would have re-potted by now.)
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All of mine have come up. Once they get going they grow pretty quickly. I need to repot these now or put them in the ground.
I’ve got about 5 1gal pots with them going. These are the most advanced.
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Mine just started to leaf out. Most of seedlings had seed on top but it have fall off,like cuted. Normally leaves come out from the seed.I was afraid it was the end but the leaves start to grow.
This is how normal seed look like.
And these 3 are of those like cuted ones. But the most important thing is that all of them are alive and growing. I repoted one few days ago, and while doing that I cuted taproot to see if will survive. It was small pot and taproot had grown in circle.
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I plant my seed an inch or so deep, they don’t raise out of the ground like that.
Also I think it is slugs that will eat the newly emerged leaves.
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This is my first year starting them from seeds. I planted them at an unknown and variable debth, grin. I’m 4 for 4. They elbowed their way up, seed attached, then wiggled out of the seed and started leaves a day or so later. The seed was empty when shelled out, so they don’t leave much behind when wiggling out of it. Would folks recommend wintering them in the ground, or in pota in the unheated porch for their first winter? Frost is possible here the end of Sept. and some are just up now.
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I don’t know your conditions in maritime Canada, but I’m 6b (some years 7a I reckon, and 2014 was equivalent to 5a). I have mine in containers sitting in mostly shaded woodsy area. Last year, I got 2 out of 10 through the winter that were planted in August. And about 4 out of a dozen from an Indiana seed source through the winter which I’d planted 4th July weekend.
And seeds I bought in 2017…1/3 of them are still alive despite the neglect. I just potted up one 2 days ago into a bigger container.
I have so many seedlings this year I don’t know what I’ll do with them if even half of them make it through the winter in containers outside.
<I planted early this year late April through early June. The early June ones were saved seed from August 2017 I’d kept refrigerated…they 100% came up…for I watered them Thursday!)
That’s my story…but your winters might be too wet and cause rot…An unheated basement or hoop house probably would be better than the way I neglect mine.
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