North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Dan Sorensen <dan.phantom@westpa.net>]

Bill,

Apparently simply having limestone in your soil doesn't mean much as far
as pH is concerned.  A few years ago I was at a soils class at the
Penn State Master Gardener annual in-service.  The instructor, the
state extension expert in soils, showed a slide of a landscape with large
limestone rocks protruding from the soil and mentioned the surprisingly
high amount  of lime that particular site required to  bring
the pH up to 7.0.  I asked him about the apparent conflict in
limestone soil needing lime.  I expected the problem would be
keeping the pH down in that situation.  His answer basically was
that the rock contributed almost nothing to the soil pH.  He said it
is more dependant on other factors such as organic matter, buffering
capacity and rainfall pH among others.  So the answer to your
question is "Maybe".  Pawpaws do seem to like moist (not
waterlogged), organically rich, acid to slightly acid soils containing
sulphur.

Dan Sorensen

At 11:47 9/16/2002 -0400, you wrote:

> I
> live in a limestone soil region. Would pawpaws do well
> here?
>  
> Bill