The Tropical Fruit Forum

2017 was a discouraging year for my pawpaws. My huge crop of seeds from fall 2016 had abysmal germination rates. 8-10 successful germinations out of at least 200 seeds. I suspect this was because I left the seeds in the fridge too long, spending 5-6 months in the refrigerator while I went to Spain last winter. And during the fall this year, those few trees that grew were cut down by a hungry squirrel who was looking for nuts among my baby pecan trees. I was left with a single surviving pawpaw seedling, which I have used as a guinea pig for an experiment.

I took my lone survivor inside and grew him on the windowsill away from any savage squirrels for the remainder of the 2017 growing season. When his leaves fell off, I put him in the refrigerator for 6 weeks in order to simulate winter and achieve the 1000 chill hours required to break dormancy in deciduous trees. The lone survivor went into hibernation in mid November and on Christmas evening I took him out. For a month, nothing happened despite his pampered existence sandwiched between bright growing lights and a toasty heating mat. I thought his stint in the fridge might have killed him after two weeks of nothing, but I soon saw an encouraging glimmer of green life underneath the thick pubescence of his terminal bud. Now that bud has finally broken, giving proof that the last pawpaw of 2016 still lives. This fridge-induced hypersleep cut the seedling's dormancy down to about a third of its normal duration, giving him a 2-3 month head start on the 2018 growing season over the wild pawpaws here. This was a resounding success and I'm going to have to try it with all of my fruit and nut trees.

https://i.imgur.com/j8Jb9bw.jpg

My 2017 seed have finished stratifying, and so far their germination rates are very encouraging. I'm already seeing 40% germination on my first batch of pawpaw seeds. Looking forward to a much better year for pawpaws in 2018.

I've heard of Lonicera kamtschatica before and it looks pretty interesting - what's the flavor like? I'm sure it would grow well here, as Loniceras tend to thrive here. A little too well, in fact; we already have several invasive asiatic Lonicera species wreaking havoc on our floral communities. I'd hate to be the guy who brings  the next invasive honeysuckle over here.

Any other Americans growing L. kamtschatica? Is it as potentially-invasive as I suspect it is?

I have ~200 stratified pawpaw seeds from trees in Kentucky and Tennessee.

I am pleased to report that pawpaw season is in full swing here in Kentucky. Looking for fruiting trees all spring and summer has paid off, because now I know exactly where to find fruits. I've been keeping notes on which trees produce the best tasting and highest quality fruit. It's surprising just how much variety there is. I've already eaten about 10 or so pawpaws this year - by far the most I've ever had in one season - and I am really surprised by how variable the flavor can be. Even among trees a few yards apart, there is often significant difference in taste. I've had some really delicious fruits and a handful of really inferior fruits as well. No matter to me - it's all just more seeds for me. I've probably collected about 100 so far and I'm hoping to get at least twice that many. I'm hoping to get enough seeds this year to give a few out to anyone wanting to try their hand at cultivating them.

Also worth noting is the fact that a coworker offered to send me the coordinates of holler in Eastern KY where he claims you can harvest pawpaws by the truckload. It'd be a hike out there, but I'm really thinking about taking an expedition out there to find the motherlode.

My transplanted plants have grown very little since I last checked them about a month ago. I suspect these plants may be setting down a large root system rather than growing above ground.

The vines at the property where I collected my seeds from are growing rapidly. I counted perhaps 6-7 individual plants with numerous flower buds; good news for anyone interested in more of these seeds.

As for your beetle, my best guess would probably be a soldier beetle species (Chauliognathus spp.) As for organic remedies, a trick I use to ward off Japanese Beetles is to collect several of the insects, grind them into a gritty pulp with a stone or brick, and then smear their remains on and around the foliage of the plants that they were eating off of. It seemed fairly effective for that particular species at least. Many beetles have very keen senses of "smell" and are able to detect minute quantities of pheromones from their own species. Allowing these beetles to get a whiff of their dead brothers and sisters might make them think twice about making a meal of your maypops.

I was out kayaking Friday and saw a few trees. Most of them had flower buds, but they were very young and very small - maybe half as large as a pinky-nail. I imagine I might see the first male stage flowers next weekend.

I'd say it's probably a sucker off the original tree. Prunus species seem to like to sucker out.

Once again, I've put too little faith in these seeds.

I checked my first batch of pawpaw seeds that came out of stratification back in January this morning. To my extreme surprise and satisfaction, I found a little white taproot showing through the container! I immediately dug the little guy out of the sphagnum and gave him a new home in a nice, deep container full of mycorhizae-inoculated potting mix. I can't believe how long these guys take just to germinate; it's been nearly 50 days since these guys finished stratifying and right after I ordered and planted year-old whips, of course.

Anyway, I'm chalking this experiment as a success. With any luck he'll be ready to plant around late May. In the meantime, I'll be watching carefully for germination from the pecans or other ~50 pawpaws. Here's hoping this seed is the first of many to sprout.

I really appreciate the offer, Triloba. Between the whips I just planted over the weekend, the seeds I just started, and the old ones, I should have my hands full this growing season.

I'll have to check out Moore's book, btw.

I just got ~50 lilikoi seeds in the mail courtesy of barath, which I believe is a cultivar of edulis. Sounds like I've got everything I need to make my own flavor of Iridescence.

Update on my maypops, as well as a correction.

It turned out that my germination rate was substantially lower than I anticipated. When I reported that the germination rate was 80%, I was apparently seeing my second wave of non-baked seedlings coming up which had been mixed with my "baked" seeds. In hindsight, mixing two treatment groups was a very unscientific thing to do, but I really did not expect any of that first batch to ever germinate so I didn't see the harm in putting the new batch in the same soil. Of the total 20 seeds I attempted, only 10 sprouted, resulting in a 50% germination rate. Soaking the seeds didn't seem to have any discernible effect on germination. And high temperatures are obviously tolerated. I'd agree that 80-85 F is an ideal germination temperature.

The main difference between my seeds and Triloba Tracker's are the stratification times. Triloba's seeds stratified for three months whereas mine stratified for only five weeks. The obvious conclusion seems to be that stratification is a bigger deal than I ever anticipated. I was under the impression that Passiflora incarnata didn't really need the long stratification period, but it would seem I've been mistaken. It is worth noting that these seeds were collected from wild specimens in southern Illinois - just about as far north as one can find P. incanata in their native range. Seeds from that area might be evolutionarily inclined to need stratification more than from a specimen from Alabama or Texas . For maximum germination, I would suggest 90 days of cold and moist stratification. 35-40 days is probably the bare minimum for a stratification period.

Even so, 10 plants was more than plenty for me and I gave three of them away to a friend. The ones that have sprouted are coming along very nicely. Got a good fluorescent lamp for them and future seedlings (hoping to use it for some pawpaw and cherimoya seedlings before the month is out). Using the lamp for 12 hours has really sped up their growth, all the cotyledons are nice and green and the older seedlings have put out 1-2 true leaves out. Looking forward to warm weather to plant them outside.

Well, stratification of my 35 wild-collected pawpaw seeds finished this weekend. I've soaked them in water at ~75 F for 24 hours and now I've put them in a container on a heat mat set to keep them at 75 F.

My understanding is that the seeds take a long time to germinate. My concern is that such a long period of time could allow mold to set in. Therefore, I've opted to use sphagnum moss as a germinating medium because of its antimicrobial properties. Once the seeds sprout, I will transfer them to tall containers filled with potting soil. Anyone know of any reason using sphagnum to germinate the seeds could be a bad idea?

Hey there.

Pawpaw is reported to be very difficult to propagate via cutting, probably because of their deep-rooting nature. Below is an article that demonstrates that cuttings made with seedlings two months old have success rate of 75%. I may try this with the seedlings I'm planting this spring, depending on how successful the germination rate is. I'll post my pawpaw experiment results in the temperate fruit discussion subforum on this site, and you can remind me to send me a cutting if mine do well.

http://www.pawpaw.kysu.edu/PDF/geneve03.pdf

Edit: Nevermind. I see you're wanting scionwood, not whole plants.