Well most of the flowers made it and most of them were fertilized. These trees like to grow fruit in clusters, sometimes as many as 6 pawpaws per stem which keeps the fruit small. Does anyone know of the technique for fruit pruning? At what point do I start snipping? Some of them fall off before they get too big but I would like to encourage large fruit. The few flowers that developed single fruits gave me nice large fruit.
Interesting that you asked about thinning because I was asking about it in the Wild Pawpaw thread. I was considering thinning some of the wild trees I've pollinated.
So I did a little googling. Here's some info from a paper published by kentucky state university:
"Trees were thinned on June 8, 2006 and June 6, 2008, prior to June drop, and when a majority of the fruit on the trees were approximately
1.5 cm in length. . . Fruit in a cluster were gently pinched or broken off . . . " by hand.
I think you just reach up there and pinch 'em off. Folks suggest, of course, pinching the smallest fruits.
Another document from Ohio Pawpaw Growers suggests thinning "early, for the benefit of the crop."
The trees will naturally drop excess fruit in May and/or June. KYSU studied thinning clusters to only 1 fruit, and reported apparently great success in doing so. Seems a little extreme but, I dunno.
This motivates me to do some thinning in the wild trees i've found, for sure.