The Tropical Fruit Forum

I have always been on the lookout for wild Diospyros virginiana since finally tasting my first ripe one a few years ago.
These are excellent fruits.
Usually the ones I find are the size of table grapes.
But this weekend I found some trees in a state park that had massive fruits (comparatively). These were youngish trees - about 6 inches in diameter and 12 feet tall.
They were randomly occurring along the banks of a lake. No appearance of being planted intentionally.

Here's a picture showing the scale. The smaller persimmon is one taken off a "normal" tree (albeit it's been on my counter about a week so has shriveled a little).


The color was more orange than the common fruits I encounter. The flavor was excellent - super juicy and sweet. Not as "spicy" as the smaller common fruits, though. Of course the flesh to seed ratio was awesome in these...lots of gooey flesh with 5-6 seeds per fruit.

I climbed the trees and ended up with about 3-4 pounds of fruit which I later processed and made into a pie (mmm) with 3 cups of pulp left in the freezer. Persimmon Pudding next!!

Has anyone else encountered wild persimmons this big? I was pretty shocked....

It wouldn't surprise me if they were a bit too far gone. The runts I discovered were found in mid to late September, definitely later fruits. Fortunately, I know what really good pawpaw tastes like, so it didn't put me off too much. I was more interested in getting some seeds this year anyway.

I'm surprised you didn't have much luck though, considering your attempts to pollinate the trees by hand. I'm definitely going to be trying my hand at manual pollination come next spring. But I wonder why you didn't get many fruit. Do you think that most of the flowers didn't take to pollination, or was it simply critters beating you to the fruit? I'm aiming to have the local trees positively laden with pawpaw by next August, so any pointers you or anyone else have would be very welcome.

Yeah, overall the hand pollination was not all that successful. The critters did beat me to a few fruits, but mostly I think it was just low fruit set in general.
Here are my thoughts:
1) First timer effect - I think a lot of the female-stage flowers I was dabbing were not actually receptive. I think the receptive stage is a lot earlier than I realized.
2) self-incompatibility - I was using flowers from the same tree in many cases. Plus if you consider that pawpaws are clonal, even several feet away I could've been working on the same "tree." (assuming any self-incompatibility would extend to sucker-produced trees)
3) Dry spell in early summer - we had a wicked dry/hot spell that may have caused several fruits to drop. I didn't count, but early-on I thought I saw many tiny baby fruits on the trees. Much later when I went back to check, many were gone. So I think several fruits just dropped or were aborted for some reason.

My plans for next year are to deliberately cross-pollinate from different pawpaw patches. I also won't bother with bagging the fruit - the varmints tore right thru it anyway. Maybe mesh cages around them would work

Shouldn't incarnata come back from the ground next year? Maybe it will runner over a few feet from the last location.

Yes definitely. Except the mother plant died like a month ago - way too early to be dormancy.
I am trying to propagate several new clones for plantings in other areas. But now it seems like it will be to replace the original plant!

Still wondering if I can/should make a fresh cut on the same node to stimulate new rooting...

Googer - thanks for the shout out

Sorry you had bad luck this year. I didn't have much myself - kind of a letdown, but more motivation for next year.
The fruits you did find definitely sound off - maybe too ripe, hard to say.

Incarnata

I soaked in a little DynaGro KLN solution .... possible that it could have been overkill.

I did cut at a node so yeah, I've thought of cutting back to a higher node, but that wouldn't leave much of the cutting remaining.

The Gritty mix had been sitting in pots outdoors for months..so may have some microbial activity. But didn't seem to hurt other cuttings.

Maybe these are just weak....the mother plant I think was not the most vigorous. In fact, I think it's a goner.

What about trying to cut the same node, just making a fresh cut?

I daydream about filling public places with fruit trees but I can see the point about them making a mess, attracting rats and people getting sick. What I have started doing is to plant my favorite trees at my family, friends and neighbors yards. This way I get the fulfillment of being surrounded by my favorite fruit without having to cram everything into my small yard.

Simon

I see the downsides too. And like you I also had the idea of sharing tres with friends and family - I don't have hardly any suitable spots for fruit trees so I plan to give some away someday.

Kerela is too hot for Asimina triloba....it needs winter to sprout well !! It's not tropical...

Ah,well yes - asimina triloba is definitely not tropical and requires many chill hours to produce properly

Maybe the "aftertaste" as described is off, I always considered it more of a vomit undertone in some.

I can get past it now that I've grown accustomed to it and some cultivars have none of that flavor.

Ah yes, I totally get the "vomit" description. I often call it "fishy" though that's not really accurate.
I am very put off by this papaya flavor tone. I have to believe that some papayas out there do not possess this characteristic, based on their popularity.
In Taipei I did sample some fresh papaya that had very little-to-no negative aftertaste.

Only seeds I have are wild.
If mail order is acceptable for you here is a nursery local to me with grafted trees. I'm sure are others - I haven't checked Edible Landscaping out of Virginia but would think they'd have pawpaw.

http://www.hiddenspringsnursery.com/plants.html#Pawpaw

I guess it was 2-3 years ago when I finally tasted my first wild pawpaws.

As I've commented here in various posts, those wild pawpaw experiences were kind of mixed.

I wanted to LOVE the fruit but the wild ones for the most part had an underlying "gamey" taste that was off-putting.

Now a few years and several wild pawpaws later, I wanted to share my tips for enjoying these fruits:

1) Let them get quite soft - recently the fruits I've eaten have been quite mushy and I think I like them best that way.

2) Keep eating them! - as with many foods, pawpaws have grown on me over time. Don't write them off if you aren't thrilled at first. I always found them intriguing, but now after eating many over a long period I CRAVE them...soooo good.

3) Chill them! - I read on the Ohio Pawpaw Festival website that George Washington's favorite dessert was a chilled pawpaw. So I have given it a try and I have to say it does enhance the experience in my opinion! mmmmmm

4) Stay away from the seeds (and somewhat from the skin) - the very first time I brought some pawpaws home, I cut them open and scooped EVERY last speck of flesh out of the skins and stripped the seeds bare. I made ice cream with that pulp, and later that night got horribly sick. Since then I've realized that the pulp that clings to the seeds is the source of the "gamey" taste and possibly my illness that night. Like other annona family fruits, pawpaw seeds are toxic, so it stands to reason to avoid them. Problem is, with small wild fruits, there is precious little flesh that's not adhered to the seed. But I still steer clear. The taste is much better the farther you get from the seeds.

I always liked pawpaws but now I am a certified addict. Hopefully this info will help further folks' enjoyment of this awesome fruit.

Quote from: Triloba Tracker on September 23, 2015, 04:05:57 PM

Yep cool to see the faux meat....of course Jackfruit has been used as a meat substitute in India for a long time.

"Putrid" is too strong of a word.....but a ripe jackfruit definitely has a bit of a "jungle" or even "animal" smell along with the sweetness, IMO.

Not sure where you have smelled jackfruit before but i would in no way describe a fresh,  ripe tree picked jackfruit as jungle or animal.  The smell can be strong however it is definitely fruity.  I agree that not everyone enjoys the smell but likes vs dislikes are common with all people amongst fruit, especially tropical fruit.  I have seen people who cant stand the smell and specifically the taste of mango, lychee, sugar apples, atemoya and many other fruits that have higher appeal.

No prob - yeah the ones I'm describing are whole fruits from markets up here, shipped from Mexico in some cases. A far cry from fresh picked!

I think we're thinking the same thing about the smell - fruity of course, but with a little bit of funk. I adore the smell! Makes me feel.... alive, I guess.

the banana is mostly in the smell and texture but it is a hard flavor to describe very tropical.

I ate a couple more wild fruits today and for the first time (perhaps through power of suggestion!) I detected some banana, but artificial banana flavor. That's a great flavor so it's all good!

Shame the flesh to seed ratio is so low in most wild fruits. Really makes me want to grow a selected variety.