Pawpaw Fruit Making A Comeback

Pawpaw Fruit Making A Comeback CROPS New Crops North America’s largest edible native fruit is making a comeback The tropical-tasting pawpaw fruit that fed Native Americans and sustained new settlers as well as members of the Lewis & Clark expedition is now being embraced as a highly nutritious food and trendy flavor for microbrewery beers If you live in Zones 5-8 and have the right soil pH 5-7 you may want to plant a pair of pawpaw trees on your property “It can be organically grown because not a lot of pests affect it and it has lots of nutritional value and antioxidants ” says Chris Chmiel who began marketing pawpaws from his Albany Ohio orchard in 1996 Chmiel and his wife Michelle Gorman have two acres of pawpaw trees Because livestock won’t harm the trees or fruit they use goats to graze the grass and weeds around the trees The goats also attract flies beetles and other bugs that pollinate pawpaws The fruit has its challenges however “It’s main limitations are a short shelf life and a short harvest season ” Chmiel says adding the fruit must be at least partially ripe before picking If eaten green it tastes bad and can make people sick Add to that the fruit’s softness makes it easily bruised so it can’t be stacked in layers like other fruit Chmiel’s solution is to pick slightly under-ripe fruit that can be sold fresh and stored in a cooler for about 2 weeks then removed from storage to ripen at room temperature But he allows most of the pawpaws to ripen completely and fall on ground ivy a native plant that provides a nice cushion around the pawpaw trees The soft flesh is removed from the skin frozen and sold through his company Integration Acres Neal Peterson who tasted his first pawpaw and began studying the fruit in 1976 when he was 27 earned a master’s degree in plant genetics While he worked for the USDA as an economist he began a breeding experiment with 1 500 pawpaw seedlings collected from historic collections He performed this research with cooperation of the University of Maryland for 18 years Through decades of evaluating the most promising trees of the 1 500 he developed seven pawpaw varieties that have higher yields and larger fleshier more flavorful fruit than wild pawpaw “Beware buying bare root; you may have a dead sapling ” Peterson says “Buy potted plants at least two for good pollination that are at least 24-in tall And it is best to buy grafted named varieties Their fruit quality will be superior to random wild-sourced seedlings A seedling pawpaw will take seven years to flower while a grafted tree usually flowers in four years ” Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Integration Acres 9794 Chase Rd Albany Ohio 45710 ph 740-698-6060; info@integrationacres com; www integrationacres com ; or Peterson Pawpaws Harpers Ferry W Va www petersonpawpaws com

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