North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Jwlehman@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/19/2008 11:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time, ehills7408@wowway.com writes:

> A couple more quick questions, one of my trees has 3 flower buds, the other has over 20.  The tree with over 20 flowers is only about 6-7 feet tall (with a main caliper of around an inch).  The idea of this tree setting 3-5 fruit per flower is just overkill (and likely not good as the fruit probably won’t be very big or even ripen).  Any idea on how many fruit this tree should be ‘allowed’ to produce?  I’m thinking in the range of 8-10 fruit total, is this still too much?  Would encouraging fruit to form individually be more prudent, can such a thing be done (cutting off all forming fruit but one per stem)?  Do pawpaws self-thin their fruit or not?      
 


Hi Scott,

Well, you have asked questions which answers I'm not sure of. 

No idea of the number of fruit that you should permit to remain on a 7 foot tree. That can depend on many things, such as rain fall next summer, soil fertility, etc. But a tree putting all it's energy into fruit grows less new wood. I think I'd limit it to maybe half dozen. 

Yes, if you were to wait about two weeks after peddle fall then carefully remove all fruits per stem (pedicel) except one would, seems to me, wopuld be a good idea. I've thought of trying it but never have. Keep in mind that flowers that aren't pollinated will show small fruits then abort those unfertilized and that is the reason I'd wait. 

At one time I believed a pawpaw that had continuously 7 to 9 stigma per flower was a better candidate for commercial selection. Greater chance of producing larger crops. Some seedling trees typically have only 2 to 4 stigma. What may be ideal are trees that have only one stigma, thus one fruit per pedicel. A pedicel that has several fruits leave open ends on the fruits when they break off. Spoilage sets in quicker. Also less attractive for commercial sales. What would be best is one fruit per pedicel.  

I've not seen any evidence pawpaws self prune fruit. I've seen pawpaw hands of 5 to 7 fruit per pedicel. That is too many!  

If you were to develop a tree that sets good crops of large fruit on single pedicels it should have good commercial value. Then breed it to be seedless and you would have a million dollar patentable tree. 

Jerry     
  



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