The All About Fruit Show was such a treat yesterday. Thank you to all who spent all the hours preparing and making it happen.
One of the highlights for me was being able to taste pawpaws and to talk with ??? About them for a while. Was it Steve? I am terrible with names.
Anyway, "Steve" said that he sprayed fish emulsion on his pawpaws to encourage pollination. I thought this was brilliant. Wikipedia talks about people hanging meat on the trees, and I have heard of people doing it by hand. This seems like such an improvement.
Karen said the pawpaws in the arboretum pollinate just fine by themselves. Karen, are they all the sunflower variety?According to the California fruit growers fact page on pawpaws, Sunflower is "possibly partially self-fertile". Maybe this is a good variety for those of us that want it to be easy?
Also, I was surprised to hear "Scott" say that he hadn't noticed all that much difference in taste between varieties. He recommended looking for a large fruit, and recommended "Vigorous" I believe it was called.
I bought some pawpaws at the show and am considering just using the seeds to start my pawpaw patch. I can't wait!
Jade,
you can do this, but don't let the seeds dry out! THey are no good then. I have grown many paw paw seedlings. Unfortunately, I then covered most of them in mulch and they died. However, I do have a few that are growing. Keep them out of full sun for a year or two.
John S
PDX OR
I would think that fish emulsion would work better. Their native pollinators are carrion flies. They are a meat colored flower, downward facing to attract beetles and flies.
I do it by hand because it's fun and relaxing and completely foolproof. Pawpaws are shockingly productive when pollinated this way.
I have also hung the bones of a piece of chicken I ate. It worked, but a cat climbed up and broke a branch. It's not a very sturdy tree.
John S
PDX OR
One way Lorraine from One Green World has explained it is that some taste more like vanilla and others taste more like caramel. I would essentially agree with that. I have mostly eaten seedlings, which are unnamed. I love all of them. Some seedlings are different in how big the flower is, how long they'll stay on, etc. but most taste similarly. One thing I will say: Of the three that I have that have grown to maturity, two are 12-15 feet high and the third is only 4 feet high! Same size of fruit. Guess which one I'm going to try to move to my new house?
John S
PDX OR
I don't have any reason to believe that the seeds would come true. My guess is that they would not, but I don't know. Interesting observation, Jade, I'll have to think about that. A graft made from it would come true, but I've never successfully grafted a paw paw.
Yet.
John S
PDX OR
I've read conflicting accounts of whether or not pawpaw varieties come true to seed. Burnt Ridge says they do (http://www.burntridgenursery.com/fruiti ... 9&parent=7) and ATTRA says they come true from seed approximately 80% of the time (http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pu.....awpaw.html). I've heard it's okay to use seeds from named cultivars, but less reliable if you're using seeds from seeds.
According to http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/pawpaw.html:
"All grafting and budding techniques can be performed on the pawpaw, but T-budding is not recommended".
But it seems to me that using seedlings from this may be promising?
http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/pawpaw.html says to transplant in the spring after bud break.
J
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