planetrj

PawPaw's are great!!!!! The fruit is delicious, and quite an experience. One you will never forget. I grow PawPaws here in Zone 10. People think I'm crazy, but really the only difference is when germinating seeds, which they do need stratification for 90 days in a refrigerator or freezer. I get roughly 75% germ this way. The only down side in my climate is even though the fruit size and full flavor potential develops because of the sun and warmth, the chill time is almost nothing, which means flowers are not abundant, and I need to hand pollinate to assure every single flower has the potential to fruit. I pollinate them like I do the Cherimoyas, so it's pretty much just an addition to the laundry list, and not such a huge undertaking.

When growing Asimina seedlings it's really a good idea to grow them in groups... not only because of increased pollination, but because seed stock can be a gamble because the flavor can vary quite a bit. Sometimes you can get an incredibly sweet rich fruit, or you can get a pungently sickly flavored fruiting seedling that came from the same fruit.

PawPaws are still underimproved for wide distribution of cultivars. Though there are several, it's certainly difficult to find the cultivars. I have a few of the better tasting cultivars that I will be grafting on some of the root stock, but it's quite a tedious project, and I am only getting about 1/3 success rate on grafts. It will probably be year 2050 before I get 50 of them to take successfully and fruit! LOL

Overall, PawPaws are beautiful trees, they are a pleasure to grow, they are pest free in my area, and I am aware they grow in the wild all the way up to South Michigan and hardy to Zone 5. One thing to keep in mind is that they have a strong, deep tap root which needs to be undisturbed once they are transplanted. If the tap root gets broken, the entire tree will die. However, this makes them exceptionally drought tolerant when they are mature.

Good luck!

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