North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Robert Bruns <r.fred.bruns@gmail.com>]

To stratify pawpaw seeds, I put them in a plastic bag in the refigerator with the mucilaginous coating still on.  The coating gets rotten and moldy by springtime, and then it's easy to wash away.  I don't know if it makes a difference, but I never let them dry out.  I usually ship a few seeds to Seed Savers members, and I put them in a plastic zip-lock bag with a wet paper towel.

 

If it looks like there is going to be a hard frost, you might be able to take the fruit inside and let them ripen in  warm location.  I've never tried it, because even the later varieties ripen OK outdoors here.

 

Fred

central Indiana

Zone 5b

On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 9:41 AM, mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com> wrote:

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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