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| Pawpaw flower. 4.28.16 |
Maybe this will be the year of the pawpaw. The oldest three trees were planted in summer 2012. Of those, two - "Sunflower" and "NC-1" have / had lots of flowers this year. A one year old - tree about 18 inchest tall, "Mango" also had all of 2 flowers, tiny tree size. even though "Sunflower" was definitely ahead of "NC-1", there has been overlap of both pollen shedding and stamen receptivity for both. Some of the "Sunflower" flowers were the first, so there was no "NC-1" pollen to pollinate them. Even so, it looks like those set. "Sunflower" is considered unusual in that it may be self fertile.
I continue to collect pollen when the anthers are shedding, and transfer to what I perceive to be receptive stigmas on the other tree. I also transferred some to "Mango" although that one is way to small to think it will bear.
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| Pawpaw flower. 4.28.16 |
It looks like some of thepollination took, especially on these first flowers on "Sunflower".
I need to keep my excitement in check. There are lots of things that can happen between now and Sept or Oct, when I expect these to ripen. Still, if all of the flowers set fruit, they will need some thinning and good watering for the summer.
I have never tasted my own pawpaw, and have only tasted tiny bites at the Home Orchard Society fruit fair - probably not optimal. Looking forward to tasting my own pawpaw fruits.
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| Early fruit formation, Pawpaw "Sunflower". 4.26.16 |
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| Early fruit formation, Pawpaw "Sunflower". 4.28.16 |
These beautiful babies look healthy. I look forward to learning about their developent.
ReplyDeleteIncredible closed up photos of the early fruit and flowers. The fruit looks like little fingers.
ReplyDeleteJoan and Lance, I want so much to taste some pawpaws from my yard this year. Not counting on it, but I can't help but get my hopes up when looking at these tinby fruits.
ReplyDeleteI will order and plant a couple pawpaw this year.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how are your pawpaw tree doing Daniel? Thank you.
Hi Vincent!
DeleteThose pawpaws did not produce fruit. The trees continued to grow, are much taller now, so maybe this year! The varieties that have grown the best are NC-1 and Sunflower. They have lots of flower buds, so we will see this year what happens.
Thank you so much Daniel. I stoped by restoringeden.co but pawpaw tree there are so tiny. I will check with Sky nursery tomorrow. Hopefully they have the good size tree. If not I will order NC1 and Pennsylvania from Burnt Ridge nursery. Thank again for information Daniel.
ReplyDeleteHi Victor, most pawpaw trees that you buy will be small. The larger sizes don't seem to survive being transplanted, and bare-root ones don't survive as well as potted ones. The trees that I planted were all in the range of 1 foot tall to 18 inches tall. They are also usually slow growers. My largest is NC-10, which I've had since 2012 and is about 8 or 9 feet tall now. The Sunflower is about 7 or 8 feet tall, same age. I liked the ones best from Burnt Ridge. Theirs seemed to be a good size and grew nicely. Raintree also had ones that were OK. Good luck with your pawpaws!
DeleteThank you Daniel. It took me all day to go 3 big nurseries. Finally I got NC1 and Wells pawpaws. They are very good size 7 gallon about 3,4+ ft tall. $160 each. I will keep them in containers in case not leaf out by this summer. And not a lot of info about Wells pawpaw in Pacific Northwest. I will updating here later. Hopfully they survive. Have a nice day Daniel.
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