In your experience, is Sunflower early, mid, or late season for a pawpaw?
Mine is producing nicely this year (nothing ripe yet), and I want to use it to time my foraging hike appropriately, since it’s a bit of a drive.
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I don’t have experience with it since I just grafted Sunflower this year, but I’ve read that it’s one of the later varieties. There’s a chart on here (KSU variety trials) http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/PDF/Pomper%20et%20al%20--%20April%202008.pdf
that shows GDDs, harvest peak, and harvest durations for a lot of the common varieties.
From my experience with picking wild pawpaws in zone 6a, they typically start around 9/9 and reach their peak (most ripe fruit falling) around the 18th. Next week should be the ideal time to be able to find the most ripe fruit in my area. They have been very consistent date-wise here over the past 3 years. For you, in 6b, anytime within the next week would probably be best. Good luck!
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Thanks. I also had next week marked off based on last year’s hike, but I figured my own tree would be an even better guide once it go going. I’ll forage next week, and compare ripeness.
My Sunflower is ripening right now in 6b Kentucky—started about a week ago. Wild ones around here usually start around the same time.
For my future reference, the Sunflower ripened today, September 16. Dropped all its fruit to the ground.
And it was good.
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