Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Around the Campfire => Topic started by: Muskyman on September 15, 2025, 02:49:03 pm
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Found a couple little groves of these while walking my dog. Never ate one before. Only took a few home with me.
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I planted 2 pawpaws years ago. They have grown into thickets that bloom every spring but have never produced fruit. I've eaten pawpaws a few times and they are pretty good but they don't have a long shelf life.
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Found a couple little groves of these while walking my dog. Never ate one before. Only took a few home with me.
Man I been keeping an eye out for those for years. I wanna try one so bad. Im even trying to grow them. If you could scoop some seeds for me id like to get some.
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Shoot me your address and I’ll send you some. I must have found 50 trees today. I’ll try and get some more fruits in the next few days and I’ll get the seeds out of them and send them out.
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Pawpaw are awesome, they make a great smoothie, but like Pat said they don't keep long.
Also make sure to only eat them raw. If you cook with them, some kinda chemistry happens and it will turn your stomach! Saw this first hand when my mom tried Pawpaw bread, lol.
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I’ve read that something funny happens with them when try doing anything other than eating them raw. Can’t remember what happened exactly but I’ve read they don’t keep well.
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The paw paws in your picture are not ripe yet, treat them like a banana, they will ripen on the counter. I don't eat the peel because I pick the fruit off the ground in the woods, eat them in place and don't wash them. The peel on a green one is bitter; it is edible if you let the fruit turn yellow.
Because of all the seeds, I break the fruit in half and dig out the meat with a spoon. I suck the meat off the seeds and spit them out along the trail I am walking; I am a Johnny paw paw seed spreader; I do the same for muscadine seeds when I pick up wild muscadines in the woods
I planted some seeds down in my woods in a small clearing, they germinate in a strange fashion, I planted my seeds in August when the fruit was falling from the trees, some came up the following spring, some seed took several years to sprout. I marked all of my plantings with a flag so I would know where they were. The bucks rubbed all of the saplings that for over 5' tall and killed them, they keep sprouting from the root but I gave up on having a paw paw patch and bushhogged them. They continue to sprout from the roots.
Paw paws develop a patch by sprouting from the root system like wild plums. They have a tap root that goes to China so you have to have a specialized extra-long pot if you are trying to grow seedlings. It is my understanding that the seedlings spend their first year after germination growing this tap root before they sprout above the surface.
For the best germination result from the seeds it is important to not let the seeds dry out, keep them moist until you plant them. I did this and got close to 100% germination from the seeds I planted.
Here is one of my small seedlings first emerging and two years later.
(https://i.imgur.com/oigdHXu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Vmb1HcG.jpg)
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Wish ida seen this earlier. Tried a couple today and would say not much flavor. Still have a few left in the fridge. Did find probably 100 trees today. Most are small 6-8 ft tall. Found one tree that has 20-30 fruits on it. Kept the seeds from the couple I ate. Gonna send them to sleek. I’ll try one again next few days. Gonna look for them to be yellow inside. One was somewhat yellow other was not really yellow.
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Wish ida seen this earlier. Tried a couple today and would say not much flavor. Still have a few left in the fridge. Did find probably 100 trees today. Most are small 6-8 ft tall. Found one tree that has 20-30 fruits on it. Kept the seeds from the couple I ate. Gonna send them to sleek. I’ll try one again next few days. Gonna look for them to be yellow inside. One was somewhat yellow other was not really yellow.
Wow. Makes ya wonder if one would make a decent bow.
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You want them yellow on the outside as well. I usually leave them on the ground in the woods until they turn yellow for the best eating. I walk by and check them several times a week, when they are properly ripe, I pick them up. They go from ripe to too ripe in a couple of days.
I don't shake the trees to make them fall out because they will be too green.
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Pretty much all of the ones I’ve gotten are from shaking the trees. I’ll leave them alone for a while and let them fall. I’m guessing the ones I have will ripen in the fridge?
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Does anyone know what pollinates pawpaws? My stands(2) of pawpaws, probably 20 years old, flowers every spring but has never had fruit.
Someone once told me that blow flies pollinate them and to throw a dead coon or possum into the clump but not only my dog but bears would love it if I did. I need a better solution.
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Does anyone know what pollinates pawpaws? My stands(2) of pawpaws, probably 20 years old, flowers every spring but has never had fruit.
Someone once told me that blow flies pollinate them and to throw a dead coon or possum into the clump but not only my dog but bears would love it if I did. I need a better solution.
Make a fly trap and hang it from the tree, high up, that will attract the flies, but render the fly trap inert by putting lots of holes in it so the flies can escape.
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I read flies, ants and beetles. Also read you need 2 completely different trees in order for them to pollinate. I’m not sure but I’m guessing it’s 2 trees that are from different plants and not from the same root system. Just stuff I have read online, for what it’s worth.
On another note, I went out into the woods behind my house because I was hearing someone running a chainsaw. As I was walking around out there I started seeing pawpaw trees all over the place.
I collected 4 fruits and left. I been living here for 30 plus years and never knew they were out there.. Funny what you see when you look around.
Pat B
Here’s some stuff I found online
Pawpaw flowers are pollinated by various flies, beetles, and other crawling insects attracted to their slightly sweet scent, which can be confused with rotting meat. Bees are not effective pawpaw pollinators. Since pawpaw trees are not self-fertile and require cross-pollination between genetically different trees for fruit production, hand-pollination with a soft brush or cotton swab is a common practice to ensure fruit set, especially for growers.
Pawpaw Pollinators
Flies: Various types of flies, including houseflies and blowflies, are attracted to the flowers and can help spread pollen.
Beetles: Different beetle species also play a role as natural pollinators for pawpaw trees.
Other Insects: Other small insects that are drawn to the flower's scent contribute to the pollination process.
Why Pollination is Challenging
Protogyny: Pawpaw flowers are protogynous, meaning the female and male parts of the flower mature at different times. Flowers first act as female and then later become male, requiring pollen from a different tree.
Ineffective Natural Pollinators: While flies and beetles pollinate pawpaw trees, they are generally inefficient at it.
How to Hand-Pollinate Pawpaws
Identify Flower Stages: You need to collect pollen from a male flower (which is dark-colored and has a swollen stigma) and transfer it to a female flower (which is green and has a small opening) on a different, genetically distinct tree.
Collect Pollen: Use a soft, flexible brush or cotton swab to collect pollen from the mature male flower.
Transfer Pollen: Gently swirl the brush inside the receptive stigma of the female flower, ensuring it is coated thoroughly with pollen.
Tips for Success
Multiple Trees: You must have at least two genetically different pawpaw trees for successful cross-pollination.
Warm Weather: Pollination is more effective during warm, calm, shirtsleeve weather.
Patience: Hand-pollination requires patience, but it's a relatively simple technique to improve your chances of getting fruit.
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Pawpaws and persimmons, two native fruits I'd love to try!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Here are my 2 pawpaws patches. The first one is in the shade along our creek...
(https://i.imgur.com/DLWSOnE.jpg)
and the one in full sun...
(https://i.imgur.com/N6Bem1e.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Oc6OehT.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Blpv9nk.jpg)
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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.
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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.
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On my morning walk I looked at the pawpaws in the shaded area and there is one pawpaw tree that is about 6".
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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.
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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.
(https://i.imgur.com/kF3ez2t.jpg)
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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.
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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.
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Curious if you got to try the pawpaws I sent you and your verdict on them. I only tried one and am still undecided. Going to try some next year now that I’m a little more familiar with how, when to harvest them. I’m thinking the ones I tried were not 100 percent ripe.
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First, thank you again for sending them! Only one was ripe enough to ripenenoigh by sitting to eat. The others rotted, but I plucked the seeds from them as well. The flavor was good, but obvious it was under ripe. They are good enough that im encouraged to try them again when they are ripen enough to eat directly after harvest, they seem like a wonderful fruit.