Author Topic: Asiminaholics Anonymous  (Read 107045 times)

W.

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #375 on: April 19, 2021, 02:52:03 PM »
If you can cover at least some of the fruitlets, then maybe you can save part of your crop. That would be better than nothing. I am considering doing that myself since my tree if far too tall to cover in its entirety.

Exactly - what are you thinking of using? for cost effectiveness and ease of application i was considering just trying to loosely wrap clusters in aluminum foil. Or even just make a little "roof" over them to keep frost off.

I was advised that actual fruit death due to temperature would not occur until aboud 28 or 29. I suspect it will not get below 35 here but there will likely be frost..........

I am not sure quite yet. I have some large, industrial bags made of thick plastic which I could try and slip over some of the lower branches. I will have to measure some of the branches and the bags. One thing about whatever you or I do is that we have to be careful not to damage the fruitlets. Those little stems are very fragile right now. At this early stage of their development, it does not take much to snap them off.

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #376 on: April 19, 2021, 04:59:16 PM »
Good advice - I agree!

Good luck....I can't believe this is happening.
actually, i had a very strong feeling that winter was not done with us....it would've been too good to be true. Some friends had already set out tomatoes like a week or more ago, and I told them for sure I was not confident enough for that!

Another friend with a commercial peach orchard also seemed to be counting his chickens early as of a couple weeks ago but i was skeptical.
Good thing he has an elaborate frost protection system paid for by grant money. Well, not that elaborate - it basically just allows him to install huge frost blankets over his entire orchard.

tropic_tester

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #377 on: April 21, 2021, 02:33:47 AM »
Hello everyone,

I just wanted to introduce myself to this post chain since I started some pawpaws. I just recently joined this forum because I started gardening and getting interested in fruits and unique plants. Pawpaws were one of the first on my list to try to grow haha. Last year, I threw a bunch of pawpaw seeds in a wine barrel planter in the shady corner of my garden and some (about 10) of them are coming up and putting their first leaves out. They seem somewhat slow to grow, is that normal for pawpaws?

I know they'll take a long time to get to fruit (or even if they will), but I'm excited to test if any will work out where I'm at since I don't think my climate is the best for pawpaws. I live near San Francisco by the coast, and get a decent amount of fog and is quite mild all year long -- not too hot, not too cold. Hopefully one of the sprouted seedlings will somehow be suited for my climate. I look forward to chatting and learning from you all here. Anything I should be aware of as I start this pawpaw journey?

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #378 on: April 21, 2021, 09:35:13 AM »
Hello everyone,

I just wanted to introduce myself to this post chain since I started some pawpaws. I just recently joined this forum because I started gardening and getting interested in fruits and unique plants. Pawpaws were one of the first on my list to try to grow haha. Last year, I threw a bunch of pawpaw seeds in a wine barrel planter in the shady corner of my garden and some (about 10) of them are coming up and putting their first leaves out. They seem somewhat slow to grow, is that normal for pawpaws?

I know they'll take a long time to get to fruit (or even if they will), but I'm excited to test if any will work out where I'm at since I don't think my climate is the best for pawpaws. I live near San Francisco by the coast, and get a decent amount of fog and is quite mild all year long -- not too hot, not too cold. Hopefully one of the sprouted seedlings will somehow be suited for my climate. I look forward to chatting and learning from you all here. Anything I should be aware of as I start this pawpaw journey?

Hey! Welcome to the forum and to pawpaws!

Quickly - yes, pawpaws are slow growing, generally, compared to other fruit trees. You might get anywhere from 8 to 18 inches in your first year. In ideal conditions and with favorable genetics I have had seedlings reach 30 inches in the first year (not common).

If your wine barrel gets any direct sun, especially in the afternoon, it could be too much for the babies. Keep an eye on them and be prepared to cover them with 30 to 50% shade cloth until they reach roughly 18 inches.

In the world of plants I try to "never say never" but your climate will probably be a challenge. Generally pawpaws need a few months of hot summer temps to ripen fruit, and they need chill hours over the winter too.

Keep us posted along the way!

tropic_tester

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #379 on: April 21, 2021, 02:46:53 PM »
It gets some filtered afternoon sun, but maybe only about an hour or so of it. It gets shaded by my neighbors pine tree for most all of the day which has made it more difficult to grow other things because I don't get full in a lot of my yard haha. It's the first year I've really tracked how the sun hits the yard so I'm unsure how much this will change as the sun moves so I'll put a shade cloth if it gets sunnier there. The stem near the base that touches the soil is so thicc compared to other plants I've started from seed haha. And yes absolutely, I'll definitely keep you updated if anything happens!

NateTheGreat

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #380 on: April 21, 2021, 11:13:21 PM »
On Monday I noticed a bee on one of my pawpaw flowers, thought it was odd. I thought they weren't supposed to be bee pollinated. I wasn't sure if it was attracted to it or just resting there. Today I saw the same kind of bee inside one of the flowers. It appeared to be sleeping. I did some research, I think it's a Eucera, maybe Eucera frater. I found this fascinating article, which discusses Euceras pollinating some irises in a similar way:

"The Oncocyclus irises cannot self pollinate, which makes studying potential pollinators a bit easier. During a 5 year period, researchers noted that male Eucerine bees were the only insects that regularly visited the flowers and only after their visits did the plants set seed. The bees would arrive at the flowers around dusk and poke around until they found one to their liking. At that point they would crawl down into the floral tube and would not leave again until morning. The anatomy of the flower is such that the bees inevitably contact stamen and stigma in the process. Their resting behavior is repeated night after night until the end of the flowering season and in this way pollination is achieved. Researchers now believe that the Golan iris and its relatives are pollinated solely by these sleeping male bees."

https://matt-candeias.squarespace.com/blog/2018/3/13/an-endangered-iris-with-an-intriguing-pollination-syndrome

It seems like the same might be true for pawpaws. The photo Monday was at 9:05am, today at 5:37pm, so Monday could be after it woke up, today after it went to bed for the evening? If so these bees sure sleep a lot of hours!







Triloba Tracker

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #381 on: April 22, 2021, 09:41:45 AM »
Wow - too coincidental because a week or so ago i also saw a medium sized bee curled up "asleep" in a very mature pawpaw flower!
From where I am now I can't see your pictures but i will look into it.

It's the only bee i have seen, but i've seen tons of flies of all sizes, ants, and spiders (trying to capture said flies).

Guanabanus

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #382 on: April 22, 2021, 10:31:20 AM »
Very interesting!

One would have to find out if the stigmas are receptive when the bee enters, or before the bee leaves, or soon after the bee leaves.

And one would need to find out if some pollen remains on the bee throughout the day.
Har

NateTheGreat

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #383 on: April 22, 2021, 12:28:50 PM »
There again today :)



My theory is the bee goes to sleep in a female flower, and wakes up in a male flower the next morning. I think the flower it's on supports this. It looks like it has just become male or is not quite there. It's hard to get a good picture with the lighting issues, and the bee inside still. It looks like the ball/sphere is mostly covered in yellow/amber honeycombs, with a bit of green near the tip. The bee I saw in the morning on Monday was on top of a male flower that was partially fallen apart. I'm not sure if they fall apart that quickly after turning male, though he could have just been there by chance.

Maybe the bees check out male flowers to sleep in, in the early evening, but the petals fall off making them unsuitable shelters, so they move on to female flowers. The petals and sepals fall off easily in male stage. If they slept in a female the night before, which was a male when they woke up, they might still have some pollen on them (or if they just tried to sleep in a male flower). If they get up around 9:30 and go to bed somewhere around 5, that's only 8 hours the pollen would need to stay on them and viable.

If the pawpaw is evolved to be pollinated by these bees, a few features of their anatomy would make sense: flowers that turn from female to male, turning to male quickly after pollination, and the petals falling off very easily in male stage.


Triloba Tracker

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #384 on: April 22, 2021, 01:54:53 PM »
I finally got to see your pictures. That bee looks bigger than the one I saw. In my case the bee was sleeping between the two outer whorls of petals, not in the center of the flower.

NateTheGreat

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #385 on: April 22, 2021, 02:38:10 PM »
11:28 update: bee has gone, petals fell off with a gentle touch, not sure if this is fully male yet.



Guanabanus

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #386 on: April 22, 2021, 04:43:35 PM »
Not male-stage yet/ no loose pollen.
Har

nexxogen

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #387 on: September 20, 2021, 11:14:47 AM »
How rare is self-fertility in pawpaws? I've got two seedlings of either Sunflower or Prima 1216 (the seller couldn't tell me which was which) and one of them flowered this spring for the first time (at 6 years old, I believe). I did some hand-pollination on itself, as the other tree didn't flower and voila, I had 12 fruits this year. There isn't a single pawpaw tree anywhere near, so I'm totally positive that it's self-fertile. So have I hit jackpot, or is this more common than I think?

gardenhoe

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #388 on: September 20, 2021, 01:22:44 PM »
love my paw paws, I have a mango, a PA golden and two that were seedlings of unknown origin.

vnomonee

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #389 on: September 20, 2021, 02:21:07 PM »
Does the "Mango" variety actually taste like mango? Is there an acidity profile to it? I want to graft my 2 trees over because they make small fruit (banana flavored) and I am thinking Mango and Shenandoah.   

love my paw paws, I have a mango, a PA golden and two that were seedlings of unknown origin.

nexxogen

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #390 on: September 24, 2021, 12:24:42 PM »
Quote
How rare is self-fertility in pawpaws? I've got two seedlings of either Sunflower or Prima 1216 (the seller couldn't tell me which was which) and one of them flowered this spring for the first time (at 6 years old, I believe). I did some hand-pollination on itself, as the other tree didn't flower and voila, I had 12 fruits this year. There isn't a single pawpaw tree anywhere near, so I'm totally positive that it's self-fertile. So have I hit jackpot, or is this more common than I think?

Nothing? I was hoping there would be more excitement about this, as self-fertility isn't a common occurrence in pawpaws as far as I know. I should also mention that in my climate (similar to NorCal 9b, but with higher summer lows and lower winter lows), they were ripening at the end of August. Seems pretty early.

Francis_Eric

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Re: Asiminaholics Anonymous
« Reply #391 on: July 30, 2022, 01:24:18 AM »
Quickly

 2 selections of Romaina ‘Vitroplant 2’ and ‘Vitroplant 3

https://www.actahort.org/books/772/772_28.htm

(random from after searching Asimina )
THE ANNONACEAE AND THE ANNONACEAE PROJECT: A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE STATE OF AFFAIRS

I have a few more new cultivars over seas just do not want to dig them up now.