Pawpaw

[Pat B]

Thanks Muskyman. Very informative. I have 2 different patches of pawpaws about 50 yards apart but I don't remember if they are from the same plant or 2 different ones.
 John, I've grown persimmon from seed. The best germination was from seed I collected from coyote scat. I've also planted fresh seeds in a pot after collecting fruit and place the pot on the north side of the house, outside and most germinated the next spring.

[sleek]

Persimmon is one of my absolute favorite fruits. So sweet and juicy with an almost jelly texture flesh where the skin will peel off with a light tug. So good.

[Eric Krewson]

Ripen green paw paws on the counter like bananas for the best results.

Pat, I walk through three different paw paw patches on my exercise trail, they are all iffy on pollination, a late frost when the flowers are fully formed will often result in little or no fruit. It is not uncommon for one or two trees out of 10 to have fruit and the others to have none. Big crops are very rare where I walk, usually there are just a few fruits in the whole patch. This is hilly terrain with the largest patch down low on the north side of the ridge where the trees get very little sun. The paw paw trees, being smaller, have also been shaded out by the mature oaks and hackberry trees. I would imagine a patch in the full sun would do much better than all of the shaded patches that I walk through.

[Pat B]

Eric, one of the patches is in shade, the other in the sun. These patches are at about 2500' elevation, the patch in the shade is along our creek the other above the creek where my native plant nursery used to be a long with other trees and plants in our arboretum. I took pics of both on my morning walk this morning and will post them later.
 As far as I know we don't have a lot of pawpaws around here. The only other one I've ever seen was years ago along a road up in Madison county above Asheville.

[Pat B]

Here are my 2 pawpaws patches. The first one is in the shade along our creek...
 
and the one in full sun...
 

[Eric Krewson]

I think your patch is too thick and a bit young. I do walk through one patch that has young trees like yours that are only about 15' tall, the patch is 30' in diameter, the trees are spaced about 5' apart and easy to walk through, they also get plenty of sun.

I was surprised to find about 20 paw paws on the ground in the patch last year, this year I only found one.

We have a native plant garden on one end of the trail I walk, they planted two or three paw paw trees in the garden with name tags to identify them. One tree started bearing a few fruit when it reached 10' tall, it only dropped one paw paw this year because of a late frost. The other trees are about the same size and has never had any fruit.

I walk another trail that has a number of very mature tree 35-40 ft tall, they are on the top of a ridge and get enough sun. 5 years ago the big trees dropped at least 100 paw paws and almost none since. This year a small tree on the side of the trail dropped about a dozen paw paws but the big trees had none.

I can't figure out the paw paw mystery either it, has alway been boom or bust on fruit production.

[Pat B]

My patches are at least 25 years old, Eric. I've been thinking about reducing the size of the one in the sun because it just keeps spreading. Only mowing has kept it in check. Now I'm thinking of an herbicide. I will thin the stand. At least the wood has some use. Apparently it makes good fire boards and spindles.

[Pat B]

On my morning walk I looked at the pawpaws in the shaded area and there is one pawpaw tree that is about 6".

[sleek]

I just got a box of them and seeds from Muskyman. Thanks so much dude! Im going to let them sit on the windowsill and hopefully turn yellow-ish. Reading about them, they can be toxic if too green, a neurotoxin called annonacin. Either way, im very grateful for them and especially the seeds! Gonna start me a patch soon as I learn if I need to chill the seeds before planting.

[Eric Krewson]

I didn't freeze my seeds, they did just fine.

You could start a few seedlings in pots but it takes a special deep pot because of the tap root.

Like the one on the left.

[Muskyman]

I just got a box of them and seeds from Muskyman. Thanks so much dude! Im going to let them sit on the windowsill and hopefully turn yellow-ish. Reading about them, they can be toxic if too green, a neurotoxin called annonacin. Either way, im very grateful for them and especially the seeds! Gonna start me a patch soon as I learn if I need to chill the seeds before planting.

Glad they made it.

[Pat B]

Eric is right about their taproot. I tried digging some at my old hunt club in GA but broke the taproot and they didn't survive.