Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [nafex] Pawpaws drought tolerance

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com>
  • To: nafex mailing list at ibiblio <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [nafex] Pawpaws drought tolerance
  • Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2012 21:30:30 -0500

I guess I wonder what you mean by established. My original patch is a
few seedlings planted in 2001, they are doing well and generating a
huge amount of suckers and slowly turning into a 'patch'. It's
planted on fairly heavy clay loam, so during a dry year like this it
becomes pretty hardpan. But I usually gauge the need for watering by
how limp and drooping the leaves seem, and they certainly had a period
a couple weeks ago where they looked incredibly stressed. Also, this
planting is essentially in full sun also. I ran a hose out there and
left it running full open for about an hour a tree and everything
recovered nicely.

I had a few kiwis drop all their fruit before I got to watering them.
It feels to me like they are fairly shallow rooted plants. Pruning
them would make a huge difference, as you say. And all the potted
kiwi yearlings I had were incredibly stressed by a month of 90+ even
with daily watering and being in full shade.

~mIEKAL


On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 4:49 PM, Richard Moyer <ramoyer@gmail.com> wrote:
> mIEKAL,
> During our severe drought years of 2007 and 2008, I observed established
> pawpaw patches on the top of rocky ridges in SW VA, which set and ripened
> full crops for fruit. They did not suffer premature fruit drop, during
> conditions that hurt other fruit crops, and caused a number of springs to
> dry up. I mentioned this to a pawpaw researcher (forget now which one) and
> they agreed that established pawpaws are surprisingly able to ripen fruit
> well in a drought, relative to some other fruits.
>
> Pawpaws don't have a huge amount of leaves (even leaf ?area?) compared to
> other trees. They also are clonal in wild patches, so have the potential
> to share water through an extensive, connected root system.
>
> Agreed that kiwi need more water than some other crops, but that could
> possibly be managed by multiple summer prunings.
>
> Richard Moyer
> SW VA
>
> From: mIEKAL aND <qazingulaza@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [nafex] Paw paw for sale?
> To: nafex mailing list at ibiblio <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID:
> <CAKVWZJcKkqzDqBLdTuN+e2uz2MW_KMnzEx0_Lz1jHL8BCEMTfQ@mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Pawpaws and kiwis seem to be the least drought tolerant. Luckily I
> have 300 feet of hose that I can drag out to the pawpaw patch and see
> if I can keep the fruit set hanging on the tree. I'm still trying to
> figure out how I got so many fruit to set with only one tree flowering
> this year.
> __________________
> nafex mailing list
> nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> aubscribe/unsubscribe|user config|list info:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/nafex
> message archives
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/nafex
> Google message archive search:
> site: lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/nafex [searchstring]
> nafex list mirror sites:
> http://nafexlist.blogspot.com/
> http://groups.google.com/group/nafexlist
> https://sites.google.com/site/nafexmailinglist
> Avant Geared http://www.avantgeared.com




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page