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Pawpaw seeds

The pawpaws are ripening and it's time for me to offer seeds to anyone who wants some. They are a cool tree for the eastern half of the country or for moister parts of the the west. Here's what they are: http://www.fw.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=155. The website says they taste like banana and, although some varieties do have a little bit of a banana flavor, I think a better description is a mixture of all the tropical fruit flavors mixed together. Even ignoring the fruit, which many people don't like, they are attractive trees with leaves that can be 18" long and turn bright yellow in the fall. The seeds can be planted now or stratified in the fridge and planted in the spring
 
paw paw

I have a pawpaw tree but never got fruit yet. Do I need more than one? It has suckers should I separate it and that would work or should I start another from seed?
 
Pawpaws won't set fruit unless there are two varieties (at least most won't). Those suckers are clones of the original, unless the original is a grafted tree, so they'll probably be of no help. Does your tree flower? If it does, get a little paint brush and pollinate some flowers next year. Take pollen off old flowers and put it on newly opened flowers. Pawpaws commonly have poor fruit set, because their flowers are pollinated by flies, which don't do the job as well as bees, etc. I suspect the attempt will fail, but it'll show whether or not you'll need a 2nd variety. Another possibility is that I could send you dormant cuttings from varieties I have and you can graft them onto your tree. The new branches should be blooming within a couple years, which is a lot faster than waiting for seedlings to reach flowering size.
 
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