Hey Frank,

I planted a few trees I found in the wild a while back.  The taproot on a 2 foot seedling is really long.  It was about 2 feet by itself.  If you don't get the entire taproot, the paw paw tree dies quickly once transplanted.  The area I got them had many seedlings all around larger trees and is the largest stand of paw paw north of the 39th.  I think you raise an excellent point, too, because I also wondered about grafting like 3 varieties on them to increase yield and sell them as self-fruitful/high yield. It makes sense, and I could see people going bonkers for these trees once they are educated how awesome the fruit is. 

My large Pawpaw 6" trunk 16' tall has sucker trees come up from the roots. I transplant them in the winter during dormancy like I do with my sucker trees from plum tree roots. They do fine as long as you make sure they are watered well in their first year of being transplanted.

Did you have to capture the entire root, or did it survive with a partial?  Thanks.

I cut the root coming from the mother tree with a shovel about 2' away from the sucker tree.Then I dig around the sucker tree in a circle starting from the mother tree side with the shovel,carefully lifting the sucker tree by the trunk as I loosen the dirt from the roots,digging and prying upwards with the shovel.

      I transplant the sucker trees to another ground location and they survive.My Pawpaw trees have small fruit on them....when they have fruit.I probably need to graft some larger fruited variety to my trees.


I haven't tried transplanting a Pawpaw to a pot.

Barry-

I'm just guessing, but the original tree is a natural tree with no name/pedigree?  How long will the suckers take to push fruit?  Just curious.
                                
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Bass:  Thanks, I got it.  Did you pollinate the flowers by hand?  In you experience, is there a commercially available variety that is a good pollinator?

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BigBill:

You're right...I think people would go for the asking price a three-in-one Pawpaw.  I would.  But commercially, it might be too hard to do on a large scale.  Who knows?  If more people could eat Pawpaw, I'm sure techniques would be perfected to make these trees available and easier for the home grower to have this fruit.  If commercial growers create a demand, the industry would respond, and garden centers would stock these trees.  15-20 years ago, no garden center in my area carried persimmons....now, these trees are as common as peach trees.  Build it, and they will come
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Frank

I have had reasonable results grafting Pawpaw. No reason why a Multigraft tree would not work in limited space issues.  Commercially, until a longer shelf-live is established  grow your own is the way to go. They are a few places like Integration Acres that sell fruit, but I have seen complaints of receiving over ripe fruit. I caution you not to eat an over ripe one. I did and for a long time afterwards even the strong smell cuased me to feel nauseas. My wife will not even let me keep the fruit in the fridge anymore.

strudeldog:

Thanks for the additional information, and especially the caveats about over ripe fruit.

Frank

I didn't hand pollinate this year and still got a big crop. I usually sell limited amount of fresh fruit through mail orders and locally, as well as grafted trees.

Frank, a seed grown Pawpaw needs about 7 years of growth before it will fruit, pretty much the same with suckers. I was told this at the recent Pawpaw tasting event by the resident Pawpaw expert

Thanks everyone, for all the information and suggestions.


Frank

I picked up some fruit from a small wild Pawpaw bush with large light green leaves tuesday.This is probably more fruit on it this year than in previous years and there are several larger than usual fruits on the bush.