You see, pawpaws are pollinated by flies, carrion beetles and other related insects who spend their days searching for rotting flesh. Not only does the sun access situation complicate matters, but then the issue of pollination throws another wrench in the system. If you do find yourself in a pawpaw patch, look around for the biggest specimen you can find-chances are it will be centrally located, and it's likely responsible for most of the others surrounding it. Sure, there may be fifty spindly grey stems adorned with fat, oblong leaves hanging anywhere from 3 to 15 feet above the ground.īut rather than relying on their seeds to spread, pawpaws instead propagate themselves by sending out clonal suckers from their roots, which look like new trees but are actually extensions of the "mother" tree. When you're way down yonder in the pawpaw patch, it's hard to tell if you're looking at one tree or fifty. You can easily overlook a productive pawpaw tree because the fruits do not stand out among the leaves. So the ideal pawpaw patch is one that is well established in the shade, but also happens to be growing near a forest edge or clearing where some of the clones get a decent amount of daily sun. Pawpaws are finicky fruit producers because they need lots of shade to grow well in their first few years, but then require good sunlight in order to flower. Where to find pawpawsĪnthropological data suggests that indigenous peoples were intentional about cultivating the pawpaw well outside of its original native range in the Southeast, which is how it made its way up to southern Canada. Expect to find the majority of your ripe pawpaw fruits through the month of September, and possibly into early October in the northern end of its range. The earliest pawpaw fruits will begin to ripen at the tail-end of August in the warmer parts of their range in the Eastern US, which extends west to Nebraska, north to New York and Ontario, and south to northern Florida. When you find a healthy pawpaw patch, you can gather hundreds of fruits in a matter of hours.
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