North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[bill dality <namtoo@yahoo.com>]

 

 

 

I asked  Neal Peterson some of these questions and his response was:

 

 

>Is the fruit of any of the other species of Asimina tastier than the fruit
of Asimina triloba?

The other Asimina taste nasty, just barely edible. I don't recommend any of
them, nor know anyone who does.

> Could you compare the taste of parviflora fruit with Asimina triloba fruit?

Pithy, not sweet, bitter.

 

The southern pps are shrubby and some are ornamental and their
seeds are small. No hybrids of Asimina and Annona spp have ever been made
despite repeated attempts starting in the 1920s. Severe genetic
incompatibilities.

 

If the fruit of the other species is inferior in taste , what is the use of obtaining interspecific hybrids.

 What usefull traits can the other species contribute?

Have any promising intergeneric hybrids been created?

I understand that cherimoya is a very tasty fruit?


P.S. I was asking what minimum temperature the fruit can take, not the tree.

 

 Bill Dality

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I have a sugar apple "annona squamosa", I grow it in a container... It
fruits well for me with artificial pollination. I need to try crossing
it with pawpaw. If I tried getting pollen from the pawpaw flower and
applied it to the stigma of the A. squamosa, Would that be the common
way? Is that usually done at a sterile environment?
The flowers are much different. I always wondered if any one tried it.
The Annona might flower at different time than the pawpaw... In my
greenhouse it blooms early april... but may continue blooming until july...
so I need to test it next spring.

Bassem Samaan
zone 6 pa

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Heron,
I have an A.parviflora(small-flowered pawpaw) selection, "Trash Pile",
which I made from plants growing on my parents' former farm, in Lee
Co., AL
- just outside of Auburn.  Heavy fruit production is what caught my
attention initially - the small fruits, 2-2.5" in length, were
festooned
all along the length of its branches, rather than in 'hands', as is the
case with A.triloba.  Fruits are quite seedy, with a pretty thin rim of
pulp surrounding them - certainly nothing to write home
about.  Additionally, I suspected that this particular plant might be
self-fertile, as there were no other pawpaws of either common
species(triloba or parviflora) within several hundred feet - and my
graft
of it here in KY has fruited well, with no other blooming pawpaws
located
within several hundred yards.

  My graft of "Trash Pile" (on A.triloba rootstock - so it's evident
that
they're graft-compatible) has been fully winter hardy here in southern
west-central KY, and Gordon Nofs has been growing it for several years
at
his Flint, MI location.  A couple of years back, Gordon told me he had
a
late freeze that burned the new leaves off all his A.triloba trees, but
the
A.parviflora leaves were virtually unscathed.

I'm growing this selection mainly for nostalgia's sake, but it's
possible
that A.parviflora seedlings *might* work as a dwarfing rootstock for
A.triloba.  The "Trash Pile" ortet was less than 10 ft tall, growing
out in
the open on a terrace on top of a droughty old red clay hillside; may
have
now been overtaken by encroaching kudzu & sweetgum trees, and if it is
still alive, I have no doubt the developers who purchased the property
will, at some point in time, bulldoze it.

If anyone cares to play around with this selection, I can supply
limited
amounts of scionwood - and may be able to find some seed from this
year's
fruit crop in the litter around the base of my grafted tree.

Lucky Pittman

 

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Here's what I wrote about other species in my book Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden (Timber Press, 2004):

            Some of the pawpaw’s deficiencies could be overcome by hybridization with other members of the genus Asimina, to wit some of the Southern species, with which pawpaw readily crosses and which excel in complementary qualities. For example, A. parviflora is an upright shrub or small tree that is cold-hardy to the coastal plain of Virginia, is self-fruitful, and ripens its (barely) edible fruits weeks before the pawpaw. To make the flowers more attractive to insects, one might introduce some blood of the fragrant-flowered A. reticulata. Pawpaws might even be grown for their flowers as well as their fruits if they had the lovely, four-inch-diameter flowers of A. obovata.

            Delicious hybrids also might result from cross-breeding the pawpaw with some of its tropical and subtropical relatives, such as the cherimoya (Annona cherimola) and sugar apple (Annona squamosa). Thus far, such hybrids are elusive.

Lee Reich, PhD

www.leereich.com

On Nov 9, 2005, at 3:38 PM, Ethan Natelson, M.D. wrote:

Yes, an expert on these is Lester Davis who does not participate in this

chat line but does have e-mail.  He has collected, photographed and studied

these species and lectured about it to us at a Southern Fruit Fellowship

meeting a few years ago.  I can send you his e-mail address off line when I

get home this evening.

Ethan Natelson, Houston

-----Original Message-----

From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org

[mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Heron Breen

Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 2:08 PM

To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: [NAFEX] Paw Paw species propagation

Hey folks,

I understand there is two other species of Paw Paw native to the US besides

A.

triloba. Has anyone used these as dwarfing or early fruiting rootstocks for

A.

triloba? Both are smaller trees or shrubs. Also, has anyone eaten their

fruit or

selected any seedlings?

Sincerely,

Heron Breen

zone 4, Maine

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