Varieties of Pawpaws

Description

• A small tree reaching 25 feet tall, pawpaw is usually a forest understory inhabitant. It prefers slightly acid, deep, fertile and well-drained soils. It has a pyramidal shape in full sun and a more open, loose growth habit in shade. Dark-green drooping leaves are 12 inches long, becoming yellow before they drop in the fall. Maroon, upside-down 2-inch-wide flowers appear from March through May and are pollinated by flies and beetles. Pawpaw's protogynous flowering sequence, wherein the female stigma is receptive to pollination before the stamens produce pollen, prevents self-pollination and results in low fruit set. One of the goals of pawpaw cultivar development is improvement in the number of fruits produced per tree.

Fruit

• The thin-skinned green fruits grow in clusters of up to nine. Pawpaws are 3 to 6 inches long and weigh between 5 and 16 ounces, and are the largest edible fruit native to North America. The flesh is yellow to orange and contains two rows of 10 to 14 brown to black lima-bean-shaped seeds. The ripe fruit is soft and highly aromatic. Once ripe, the fruits last only two days at room temperature. Although the fruit's ripening is delayed by refrigeration, the cold temperature changes the taste of the fruit, giving it undesirable flavor. Another goal of pawpaw breeding is to produce a fruit that can be shipped before it ripens without harming fruit quality.

Most Productive

• In trials of pawpaw varieties conducted by Kentucky State University, the cultivars "Sunflower," "Wilson," "Shenandoah," "Wabash" and "PA-Golden" all yielded over 60 pounds of pawpaws per tree. "PA-Golden" and "Wilson" had over 80 fruits per tree. Varieties with fruits weighing over 6 grams each were "Sunflower," "Wabash" and "Potomac." "Wabash" combines high productivity with good taste. Fruits weigh 8 to 12 ounces with more orange flesh. It has a rich, sweet flavor and a medium-firm, smooth, creamy texture. Cultivars with consistently low yields included "Overleese," "Wells," "Middletown," "Mitchell," and "Potomac."

Best Flavor

• The variety "Shenandoah" combines good flavor with large fruits, few seeds and flesh with a smooth, custardy texture. This is a tree with improved yields developed by pawpaw breeder Neal Peterson. It is a seedling of the older variety "Overleese." "Susquehannah" produces large fruit, sometimes close to 16 ounces, and the fewest seeds of any pawpaw variety. Its flavor is rich and sweet with a buttery, firm texture similar to that of an avocado. Trees have moderate to good yields. It originated as a seedling from the Blandy Experimental Farm. "Wells" has large fruit with orange flesh, with the flavor characterized as superb by California Rare Fruit Growers.