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Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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Posted by RichinRichmond 7 Richmond VA (My Page) on Sun, May 15, 11 at 15:08
I have two 7-year old Peterson Pawpaws: a Susquehannah, about 1" caliper in more shade than sun, and a 1.5" Shenandoah in more sun at the edge of some woods. Thanks to this forum, I tried some hand pollination using a Q-tip and a shot glass, going back and forth, about two 15 minute sessions. Now, the trees have set quite a lot of fruit. The larger tree has several clusters of 5 or more. I wonder if such small trees can support much fruit. So, my questions for the resident experts are:
1. Do paw paws have a June drop like other fruit trees?
2. How much fruit production can it support? Is there a number of leaves per fruit, such as the purported 35-40 leaves per apple or peach?
3. How, how much, and when should thinning be done?
Thanks,
Rich |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| Pawpaws will drop some of their fruit over the next month or so and even later sometimes. When after the fruit drops occur sometimes the trees can still be overburdened with fruit - the problem here is that each individual fruit will be smaller so the seed to pulp ratio will be higher and you may not get the best results. Some say thinning the clusters to 2 fruits is optimal. My advice would be if this is your first year fruiting not to thin and see how things go. If you're really not satisfied with the fruits you harvest then next year thin for larger and maybe better tasting fruit. |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| I sure wish we had that problem here. In viewing scores of cultivated pawpaws in fruiting season--early and late--and many thousands of wild ones similarly I have never seen one even remotely too heavy or crowded with fruit. I have seen abundantly fruiting pawpaws only in pictures from well north of here (middle SC). I have never seen an early drop. This said, occasionally you will see 3-5 fruit in a cluster. In mine at home I've never seen any notable stunting of fruit though, but sometimes I am removing ones as they get ripe and the remaining ones are thus less crowded. I've always suspected pollination problems here for low yield, as it affects both local native ones (toward southern end of the range) and cultivars (from much farther north). |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| WOW.....I am wondering if taking 7 years to grow to 1" caliper is normal for these paw paws? Even Magnolia trees can beat that. Are these seedlings or grafted? How good is the soil? Watering? Fertilizing? If I got on a waiting list and acquired tiny grafted Susq. and Shen. plants, would it be possible to speed up their development? I regret that I didn't plant some of these a LONG time ago. |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| I have some that are that slow, on drier sands and probably with a lot of root competition. Others that are inherently more vigorous (especially "Mango"), while still on sand but much better mulched and fertilized and watered, grow considerably faster. None is fast that I have seen, except for some new grafts for the first year or so. |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| In hoping to get the best fruit in the fastest growing trees in the shortest number of years, would it be wise to: A. find and plant the biggest available Mango paw paw seedlings,B. plant them in the best soil in full sun,C. fertilize and water systematically, D. buy Susq. and Shen. grafted plants, and E. graft these to the biggest of the Mangos after a few years of growing? If money were not a constraint, I would buy someone's big trees and haul them here in spade trucks. Wishful thinking. |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| The biggest difference maker in terms of production is the hand pollination. Some of my 9 foot trees which have been repeatedly hand pollinated have over a hundred small fruits at this point some in clusters of up to 8. A number of these will fall, but the trees will still be overloaded, and the question regarding thinning becomes pertinent. I have been inclined to leave them, as the visual of an overloaded pawpaw tree with big clusters of fruit is gratifying, though in a more practical sense - bigger fruit, less chance of limb breakage - it makes sense to thin. The trees I've obtained from several retail nurseries have all grown disappointingly slowly (with the exception of those from Peterson Pawpaws) as a result of transplantation shock. This can be avoided by growing your own from seed of selected varieties or later grafting good varieties not under patent such as NC1, Overlease and Mango. It will take five or six years from seed to fruit, but my trees at that point grown that way are much larger and healthier than the nursery trees. Pawpaws do respond well to early season nitrogen fertilizer applications and once they start growing should put on about 2 feet of growth per year. |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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Thanks for the input, everyone. My trees are small because they are in a pretty marginal location, and I have largely neglected them. They are on poor, thin soil over heavy clay, they are on the edge of woods, or really 20 feet into the woods, so they don't get very much sun, and I'm sure lots of root competition, and we have had some pretty droughty summers recently. This year I actually fertilized them some, and tried the hand pollination, which seems to have worked out very nicely. If I get a good crop, I'll post an update. In the mean time, how much do I need to worry about the ever-ravenous squirrels?
Rich |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| So did you ever get any susquehanna or shenandoah fruit and if so how did you like them? |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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creekweb, I'm curious about the details you have in mind when you say "growing your own from seed." Would you seed your own in pots? If so, how is that different from what you could buy? (I'm pretty clueless and trying to figure all this out, so my forgive me if my questions are stupid.) Or would you seed directly in the ground where you want the tree? If that's the case, how would you manage that? I'm thinking about weed competition and keeping track of where the trees are supposed to come up... Maybe that would be easier than I'm thinking, but I've never done anything like that before. What kind of germination rate should one expect from pawpaw seeds? By the way, I've got a fair number of seeds that I put in damp peat moss in a ziplock bag immediately after eating the fruits this past summer. I planted some about 4" deep in sections of PVC pipe about 14" long about a week ago. If there are better times and ways to grow pawpaw seedlings, I'd appreciate pointers or links to information or whatever. Thanks!
Eric |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| Cousinfloyed, You can google it at kysu pawpaw planting guide and that will give you plenty of instructions. Plus you can also google Peterson pawpaw and that give you a visual tour of his work and products. Remember you have to protect the young seedlings from the sun the first year. They are sun light sensitive. Good luck Tony |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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There are a number of different ways to propagate pawpaws from seed. These may be found on the KSU site or elsewhere on the net, but this is what has worked best for me so far:
I clean the seeds and place in mildly moistened peat moss in a ziplock bag which is placed in the fridge for a period of at least 120 days. I then remove the bags from the fridge and place in a warm environment about 80F where the seeds germinate in about 3 weeks. I then plant several seedlings in 3 gallon containers in appropriate media and keep in the 70 - 85F range under artificial light. I find that the seedlings can tolerate pretty strong artificial light whereas sunlight will burn them. The seedlings respond well to frequent nitrogen applications. At the end of the season when they're 1-2ft tall I put them outside under indirect light and allow them to harden off and drop their leaves and then store them in a cool but not freezing spot over the winter. The next spring they will transplant easily into their permanent spots in the orchard without transplant shock and without need for sun protection. The idea of using tall thin pots like sections of PVC is an appealing one for pawpaws, but one that has not worked well for me so far; I will be trying these pots again this year using a more water retentive medium to better compensate for my watering routine. |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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Creekweb's system is pretty much on the money. They need a chilling period (stratification) followed by a warm environment. If you put them in the fridge in October, you should be able to start them out in February. I have planted multiple seeds directly into pots (with potting soil or very loose soil)after taking them out of the fridge and put the pots in a warm place until they germinate. They are easy to transplant in the Spring to larger pots. Be aware that the roots grow first before the top emerges and the tops look like they've been broken because the cotyledons are normally left behind in the seed.
I don't recommend planting seeds in the ground. The seeds will not germinate until the ground is thoroughly warmed so that they won't emerge until late July or August here which gives them a very short first season. Once they do emerge, the little seedlings are subject to all manner of damage not the least of which is slugs. |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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- Posted by jolj 7b/8a-S.C.USA (My Page) on
Sat, Jan 28, 12 at 20:49
I Have just got Pawpaw seeds & trees from a local hybridizer, who generally gave me my first trees.
I am planting them in the tree line, around the ten acres, but the trees will be about ten feet apart in two different groups.
If one wanted to thin the Pawpaw fruit , could you just hand pollinate fewer blooms?
You will be taking a chance. |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| Each flower can give rise to a cluster of fruit. I would guess that you would be better off pollinating all the flowers, then thinning to one fruit per cluster, rather than having the same total number of fruit in a smaller number of clusters. For example, if you could get 20 individual fruits, I'm guessing they would size up better than if you had 5 clusters of 4 fruit each. Alex |
RE: Thinning Pawpaw after hand pollination
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| Interesting thread! For what it's worth, I got 1 fruit from susquehannah,and a few from shenandoah. They were pretty small--like raquetball sized or smaller. I thought they had a good pawpaw taste, but no particular sweetness or great flavor. I am not at all sure I picked them at a good time, however. After I scolded the kids for throwing them on the ground, it occured to me that maybe they were ripe earlier than I expected. Then, they seemed underripe, so I wonder if they just dropped from heat stress. We had another hot dry summer. Susquehanna ripened in mid-late August, and Shenandoah shortly afterwards, if I recall correctly. Time and experience will tell, I guess. At least the combination of spring fertilizer and hand pollination worked.
Rich |
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