North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Diane Porter <dporter@lisco.com>]

I live in southeast Iowa and want to try paw paws. I understand they  
do nicely here, but I've never seen, let alone tasted, a paw paw  
fruit, but they sound wonderful.

A couple of years ago, a NAFEX subscriber kindly sent me some paw paw  
seeds. Unfortunately, only the deer got to taste the paw paws, but  
they by no means waited for the fruit. They yanked the seedlings  
right out of the ground, wiping out my entire crop in one night.

I now have a serious deer fence on its way to me, and I want to try  
again. Is there a reasonable expectation of getting tasty fruits from  
seedlings? Or do I need to purchase grafted trees (about $25 each  
from Raintree)? Being optimistic about the quality of seedlings, I  
would like to try raising the trees from seed, bu I'm getting too old  
to wait years for fruit and then be disappointed in the taste. So I'd  
appreciate the expert advice of fellow NAFEXers. I also wonder if  
anyone can suggest somewhere that I can obtain some seeds.

Diane Porter, Fairfield, Iowa