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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 25, 2022 12:33:12 GMT -6
Hmoosek,
To get my pawpaw seedlings past their first two years, I drive three pieces of rebar into the ground in a delta pattern, at 90-degree angles to one another. The point of the delta is to the South, with one rebar to the West, and one to the East. (The pawpaw seedling is in the center of the delta).
The rebars I use are 4' feet long. After I drive the rebars, I use them to hang two used coffee bean sacks from them, for shade. It takes about two seasons for the coffee bean sacks to rot and fall off the rebars, by then, the pawpaw seedlings are past their 'critical stage' and direct sunlight is no longer much of a problem.
Part of the 'catch 22' of growing pawpaw trees is that they have to be planted in a shady spot in order to survive their first two years, but if they are not in direct sunlight, they don't bear fruit very well. So, that's why the coffee bean sacks work so well. After two years, I just pull the rebars up and put them back in storage, or use them to plant another pawpaw seedling.
It has been my experience that pawpaw seedlings have a high rate of attrition. I planted 14 of them before I ever got the first 4 to survive, but once they are established, there is no holding them back. One of my Wells variety pawpaw trees has about 50 volunteer suckers sprouting up from the roots this year. I can see where that might get out of hand really fast without proper pruning to prevent a forest of pawpaws in each spot.
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Post by macmex on Jun 25, 2022 16:22:05 GMT -6
These seeds should be from Ron's Wells variety fruit. The fruit was really large. No telling with what it is crossed but the female parent was the Wells.
We have one other Paw Paw, which I obtained as a sprout, from Ron, in 2020. It's doing well in our front yard. Now, hopefully, well have something for cross pollination.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 25, 2022 20:41:48 GMT -6
Thanks, for the update, George. I never knew if that seedling lived or not. I've got plenty more sprouts where that one came from if you ever need another one or two or ten.
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Post by macmex on Aug 10, 2022 10:37:37 GMT -6
It was a rugged number of weeks. Several seedlings came up and died before I realized they were simply getting cooked in the sun. So I pushed the pot back into some weeds by my greenhouse, praying that I wouldn't forget them, and watered every evening in my watering routine. I did forget them at one point but they survived. When I checked on them this is what I found!
These seedlings are from Ron's really large fruited paw paws.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 10, 2022 11:40:36 GMT -6
They look great to me, macmex. Cool! I've never seen any growing around here, maybe I'm too far west for them to grow well here in the cross timbers. But I don't know why they wouldn't, maybe nobody has tried?
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Post by rdback on Aug 10, 2022 14:31:47 GMT -6
OK, that's it! I now know pawpaws grow in Virginia (both Washington and Jefferson grew them). I'm going pawpaw hunting, dang-it! They're supposed to be ripe for the picking around here during September. I got a few places to go look. I'll keep you posted. And, since I live on the river, I just might try and start a patch!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 10, 2022 14:56:45 GMT -6
You live on the river? Now I’m even more envious (the Shenandoah Valley was the previous source of envy).
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Post by macmex on Aug 11, 2022 8:04:21 GMT -6
Woodeye, Heavyhitterokra (Ron) has done the most experimentation I know, on growing Paw Paws in Oklahoma. They grow wild, just over the border, in Arkansas, but nope, not here in Oklahoma. I believe Ron figured it out. Paw Paw seedlings need protection from our harsh, hot summer sun until they are about two years old. Otherwise they burn up and die before getting started. I remember when I first moved to Oklahoma. I purchased a couple of Paw Paw seedlings and planted them. They always died. Then I met Ron. It wasn't long after that Ron told me about what he'd learned. He has beautiful Paw Paw trees on his place.
I have a Paw Paw in my front yard which should be able to grow well without protection in 2023. I put a tomato cage around it and hung a piece of burlap on the cage, so as to protect it from the hottest afternoon sun. I think the weeds which grew up around it helped too. (I weeded a couple times, just to save it from being crowded out, but left enough to provide additional shade.)
These little seedlings will go into their permanent location this fall and I'll put up a similar shelter for each of them. My wife's grandparents, who lived in southern Illinois, were so proud of their Paw Paw trees, which they grew in their front yard. We have such good memories of these, yet without the information we got from Ron, we would never succeed in growing them here.
Chrysanthemum, I suspect you could grow Paw Paws if you gave them the necessary shade. You'd probably be the only one for hundreds of miles to have them!
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Post by rdback on Aug 11, 2022 8:05:50 GMT -6
You live on the river? Now I’m even more envious (the Shenandoah Valley was the previous source of envy). Yepper. We're fortunate to live on one of the Seven Bends on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. The Valley is truly wondrous.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 11, 2022 8:54:09 GMT -6
Thanks for the info on the technique, macmex! I bet that would work here too.
I have Illinois relatives, although I've never been up there to meet them. My great, great, great grandpaw-paw was born in Scotland in 1787. He became a physician there, but he gave up that career to come to the United States. Settled in Pennsylvania for a couple of years, then moved to Illinois probably about 1820 or so. Built a grist mill on the Spoon river, and the town was named after it, Duncan Mills, Illinois...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 11, 2022 17:46:09 GMT -6
Quote from rdback: "Yepper. We're fortunate to live on one of the Seven Bends on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. The Valley is truly wondrous."
My best and heaviest bearing pawpaw tree here in Oklahoma is a variety named, "Shenandoah." If that's any indication, I'd say rdback is in pawpaw country for sure. A few of our pawpaws are starting to get ripe right now, but the lion's share of them won't be ripe until closer to Labor Day. They have close to zero shelf life, so if you spot one about to turn soft, you'd better nab onto it.
I have a few pawpaws coming up from seed around here. They have the nasty habit of germinating in the month of August, so unless they are in a shady, lightly wooded, wet area, it's really hard to keep the seedlings alive in our heat. There are three or four of them growing in the edge of the woods that are three or four years old already. One of them that is about 5 or 6 years old has fruit on it for the first time this year. My older trees were covered with fruit earlier in the year, but the drought caused many of them to cast their fruit during the July heatwave. Because of the drought, the remaining fruits are quite small compared to years past.
The catch 22 concerning pawpaw trees is that they don't fruit very heavily if not grown in direct sunlight. If they are planted in direct sunlight, the sunlight will kill them; so if you want heavily fruiting trees, you have to temporary shade them for the first two years.
To do that, I drive three 48" inch long rebars in the ground to the South, East, and West of the seedlings, about 2' feet away from the seedling, in a 90° 'V' pattern. Then, I hang two heavy, burlap coffee bean sacks between the rebars to provide shade in the shape of a 'V' from the South, East, and West. I use tie wire to attach the burlap sacks to the rebar supports. It takes about 2 years for the heavy burlap to rot and fall off the rebars. By then, the seedlings are well enough established to take on full sunlight. P.S. despite what people claim, deer do eat the seedlings, so if you have deer nearby, it's a good idea to cage the seedlings.
Once mine are established, (two years old) I remove the rebars and drive them back in the ground about 4" inches from the trunk to prevent young bucks from rubbing the bark off of them. Once they have established a few side branches, bucks rubbing them becomes unlikely, so I pull up the rebars and store them in my tomato cage area.
It's also good to note that Pawpaw trees enjoy low to moderate pH between 5.5 to 7.0 - though they are more tolerant to slightly acidic soil than to alkaline soil.
I have some really good scion wood from the Wells, and Shenandoah, varieties here if anyone needs any. I did have a KSU Atwwoods variety, but the deer browsed it off level with the ground three years running, so if by chance it was a graft, it's probably not a KSU Atwwoods anymore?
Which reminds me; pawpaw trees are really resilient. They remind me of persimmon trees in that regard. One year, I found one of them pulled up by the root, laying on the ground after it was about 5' feet tall. Someone had run over it with a truck. It got caught in their bumper and was dragged for a short distance from where it had been planted. The tap root was still there, but it had no secondary roots still intact. Since it was the dead of Winter, the ground was still frozen, so I just took a rock bar and drilled a hole about 16" inches deep and plugged the tap root back into the soil, tamping it in with my foot. When Spring came, it leafed right back out. It has been stunted since that time, but it has put on fruit every year since. They are truly amazing little fruit trees.
That's about all I know about growing pawpaw trees, except they really do appreciate some good compost early on. I used the Charles Wilber method on a couple of them out here and they are twice the height and girth of the ones that were not treated with compost. (Well worth the effort for sure).
This is the 5 or 6 year old tree that is fruiting for the first time.
One of the first year fruits, (not too shabby for such a young tree).
This is a baby pawpaw that has come up from seed. I think this is a send year tree? It's growing in the woods, so it doesn't need any added protection from sunlight.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 11, 2022 18:14:40 GMT -6
My best and heaviest bearing pawpaw tree here in Oklahoma is a variety named, "Shenandoah." If that's any indication, I'd say rdback is in pawpaw country for sure. A few of our pawpaws are starting to get ripe right now, but the lion's share of them won't be ripe until closer to Labor Day. They have close to zero shelf life, so if you spot one about to turn soft, you'd better nab onto it. So with that in mind, the song we sang when we were kids, "The Paw-Paw Patch", would not demonstrate an approved harvest method. One third of the song says "Pickin' up paw paws, put 'em in your pocket". There are zero lyrics pertaining to shelf life and/or sticky pocket issues...Just an observation...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 11, 2022 20:15:37 GMT -6
Woodeye, that song reminds me of picking strawberries when we were little kids. My Mom took us to an old man's strawberry patch one summer to pick berries. She left us kids in the field, picking berries while she went inside the house to fetch something (Probably a bucket). While she was gone, our little hands got full and we were wondering what to do with the berries. The old man, whose patch it was said, "Put 'em in your pockets." Then he made himself scarce. We stuffed our pockets full of strawberries, then every time we squatted down to pick more berries, the berries in our pockets got squished. In no time, we all had big, red, berry stained patches on both sides of our zippers. A few minutes later Mom came back and saw what we were doing. "WHAT ON EARTH POSSESSED YOU KIDS TO DO A THING LIKE THAT!" She said.
The old man that owned the patch was nowhere to be found.
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Post by woodeye on Aug 11, 2022 22:27:19 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra That old man was probably over behind a tree or something, watching and laughing... Bad kids! Bad kids!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 28, 2022 12:15:56 GMT -6
The Pawpaws are finally beginning to ripen. Even though they cast much of their fruit during the intense heat and drought of June and July, I found 10 ripe fruits this afternoon when I came home from Church.
This photo is of a Wells variety in its first year of production. Very impressive for such a young tree. I just planted this one 5 or 6 years ago. It seems odd to see such large fruit hanging from such small branches.
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