Neal Peterson said that the ripening order of his three original releases is Rappahanock, Shenandoah, Susquehanna.

I found an old email from Neil from 2009. When I asked which ripened soonest he replied: "Of mine, earliest are Allegheny and Shenandoah. Of others, I recommend Pennsylvania Golden .... in other aspects its quality is not as good as mine."

I keep trying with pawpaw but I've failed so many times I'm thinking of just buying some seedlings to figure out how to keep them alive. I do have one rootstock that keeps coming back from the ground every year and I'd like to graft to it one day. I just want to taste one for once.

I live in Winston-Salem, NC and among the pawpaws I have growing and fruiting so far, overleese, mango, rappahannock, and pa golden are among the earliest to ripen. Sunflower and prolific are the latest. I usually get fruit off the same tree over a 3 to 4 week period starting the 1st to middle of August. I usually get a couple fruits that ripen at the end of July but it depends on the season. Most all of the sunflowers are gone by mid September - usually. Sunflower is a noticibly later ripening variety. I have not noticed a particular variety to be the earliest - some years mango is my first ripe fruit, other years it will be overleese and in others pa golden. There is not a lot of difference here.

Does anybody have updates to add to this list?

My experience with ripening order roughly is:

Shenandoah - this one starts early but has a long ripening period over a month, Summer Delight, Allegheny, NC1, Rebecca's Gold, Mitchell, Jonathon, Prolific, Wabash, Lynn's Favorite.

Would like to see if anyone else could update this thread? Sounds like shannondoah is a good one to add to my list for zone 4b.