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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] zone 4 pawpaw update

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  • From: "loneroc" <loneroc@countryspeed.com>
  • To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] zone 4 pawpaw update
  • Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2010 05:31:04 -0500

mIEKAL et al,

The U of Wisconsin Arboretum in Madison has Iowa "native" pawpaws that ripen every year and, based on my few tastes, are small but were tropical custardy in flavour. In one of my chats with the Director Emeritus, Ed Hasselkus, he said that there was a reasonable possibility that the Iowa plants originated from seeds spat out by railroad passengers since the plants are generally found near the tracks. Of course pawpaws are often found in river bottoms, just where tracks run, so the distributional correlation could merely be coincidence.

Of course there those who theorize that all northernmost pawpaws in the country originated through deliberate planting by Indians. This would explain why many of the best tasting fruit come from the northern part of the range---these trees have been filtered through human taste buds rather than selected by the coons, possums and mastodons who are/were the most frequent consumers further south. These critters may have less discriminating pawpaw palates than we do.

I've grown pawpaws for many years here in zone 3 in SW Wisconsin. The plants survive, but I've never seen a fruit. The trees (of Iowa, Illinois and Michigan origin) kill to the ground in winter about half of time and have to resprout from secondary buds in many of the years where the wood survives above the snowline (not too many snowy winters around here any more). Every now and then there's no damage but since the growth never makes it past 6-7 feet there's no fruit to be had. Sigh.

Steve Herje Lone Rock, WI USA, USDA zone 3, with a maximum winter low of -43F or so in the twelve years I've lived in this cold place, and an all time low of -53F--the coldest temperature ever recorded at a US Weather Service station up to that time. It's probably been surpassed elsewhere by now. Five miles away as the crow flies, they get peaches most years---Zone 5 on the bluff tops. My 10 Siberian C peaches only ever produced one flower from the whole lot. They are gone.


----- Original Message ----- From: "mIEKAL aND" <qazingulaza@gmail.com>
To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 8:41 AM
Subject: [NAFEX] zone 4 pawpaw update


The PA Golden pawpaws that fruited for the first time for me don't
look like they will ripen on the tree. They are still quite hard, not
soft to the touch, & have at most 2 weeks more of non-freezing temps.
John Gordon had told me that this is the shortest season pawpaw that
he knows of & the earliest ripening in his planting. I did find one
on the ground tho that had fallen off several weeks ago & it was fully
ripe & I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor & texture, custardy
with a strong flavor of green or not quite ripe banana.....

More concerning is that the oldest tree which had maybe 20 fruits on
it, lost 3-4 of its main branches, the branches at the crotch look
very weak, & I'm seeing some kind of rot, but that may have formed
after the crotch started giving way.

Cleaning seeds looks like it'll be quite challenging, I seem to
remember someone posting that they use some kind of caustic like
baking soda to get the mucilaginous seed casing off.

The newest batch of seedlings I'm growing out is a mix of all of John
Gordon's varieties, so in 8-9 years I'll let you all know if I find
any more possibilities for the northern tier of pawpaw culture.

~mIEKAL

& by the way, I really don't think hardiness is an issue in zone 4,
I've never seen any winter kill on any of the plants. it's just
getting the fruit to ripen on the tree.
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