Paw-paw like shaded area's but the fruit will taste better if they get sun exposure. Most of these tree's go through a hard time in the first few years. In my area i have large' tall tree's in somewhat open area's and doing well. My tree's are in an area with a lot of sun, 10am/5pm and yes it fried halve of the leaves, but this has been a not normal spring and summer. Spring start the second halve with 90's and than all summer long and still is. One of my tree's is not even faced by all this sun/heat. It had a lot of flowers this spring but the sorrounding tree' did not had flowers to help out. So maybe next season. The ideal place would be in my estamation long morning sun to about 1 p.m. with a lot mulch if you live in area with high heat and not much rain in the summer. In the fall i pile a lot hardwood leaves at the base with mulch on top of it so the leafmulch stays put.

Frank, at out latitude and in our climate, I don't think it matters a whole lot. I have 2 paw paws that I planted in the early 1990's. One of them is in full sun, and the other is almost exactly as you describe. It gets full sun until about noon, and then is shaded by a standard apple tree planted about 20 to 25 feet to its south (I do have to prune some of the apple branches to keep it out of the paw paw). Then, as the sun moves around (OK, as the earth rotates!), the tree is in full sun again from about 4:00 to sunset.

I see no difference in these trees in terms of growth pattern, habit, bearing/productivity.

All of the paw paws I've planted since are basically in full sun. And they do fine.

My sister lives in SW Michigan just about 10 miles north of the Indiana state line. On her property, there is a grove of wild paw paws in the woodland along the roadside right of way. They are more open and airy than my trees. I would say its due to the fact that they are growing in fairly shady conditions under the canopy of large, mature oaks and hickories. I suspect if they were out in the sun they would be less whispy.

Now, in the South, I think that these trees would need the shade, especially in the hot part of the day.

franktank232 - How tall and how old is the pawpaw tree pictured? Also, which part of S. Wis is it located?

I have 11 pawpaw saplings (grafted) planted, Spring '09 and Spring '10, south of the IL-Wis border near Waukegan, IL. They are planted in a circular clearing next to a small creek in a circle, about 8 feet apart.

Adjacent to the pawpaw circle are 2 large cottonwood trees on the S and SE which provide dappled shade from 9am-3 pm. On the W are 2-3 Shagbark Hickories that give the pawpaw afternoon shade, again dappled. On the E, there is a small mulberry in a thicket. However, there's is less shading on the north side. So they only get direct sun intermittently all day.

So far, they seem to be doing OK, but they are still young and probably appreciate the shade.

Some cultivars are faster growing than others. Last year was a mild winter and it would be interesting to see how they do in a severe winter. They also get supplemental watering in the summer during dry spells (lots this year, as the rain clouds seem to miss NE IL quite often).

FYI, Faster growing cultivars are Sunflower (received potted), Shenanandoah (received bare rooted) and Rappahannock (received bare rooted). Overleese and NC1 (both received bare rooted) are not fast growers. The slowest, almost glacial, is Susquehanna (received bare-rooted).

I have no idea how old those trees i saw yesterday. I'm guessing the one that is just a seedling (below) (according to the tag on it) must be at least 5yrs or older. It had a pretty good sized trunk (i have no idea how fast these things grow).They were in Madison, WI...which is very similar to the climate here in La Crosse. Here is a pic of the full tree (seedling). The other tree (picture above) is "Wilson". They both had fruit, but the fruit was rock hard still.

{{gwi:60062}}

I think i'll just plant them in the shaded area of the yard and risk it. Growing from seed is fast, so if they get wiped out...so be it :) They'll get good morning sun and then evening sun...

They'll get good morning sun and then evening sun...

Your situation should be good because I was told that, even for apple trees, if you could get morning and then late afternoon direct sun, you should get good fruit bearing with minimal fungal diseases. Also, when the trees are shaded during the hottest part of the day, it will reduce water stress.

For me, as a home orchard grower, "good enough" should suffice as I'm not optimizing for fruit production like a commercial orchard.

Thanks for the pics. If you would like to see my pawpaw pics, they are in the Yahoo Pawpaw Discussion Group Album.

I read somewhere that pawpaws need five months of hot weather to get fruit. They will grow with less heat than that, but you would get no fruit. I wouldn't hold my breath on getting any fruit in LaCrosse area. Have any of you living in zones 4 or 5 actually gotten ripe fruit? I'm curious, because a friend here near St. Paul has been longing for pawpaws, but assumed it was not possible to grow them here in zone 4a. Northwoodswis

North-

You're right. Its very iffy up here. I'm not holding my breath. Since they are getting fruit in Madison, i've got to try. This global warming stuff, if true, could help us. I do get ripe peaches, sweet cherries and this year nectarines..plus i grow bananas, plumeria, pineapple, etc...so i'm in zone denial anyways.

I don't really know if it's all that necessary to have a lot of heat to ripen paw paws. Mine had no problems ripening in the summer of 2008, which was very cool, nor in the summer of 2009, which was record-setting cool here. I didn't notice any difference in flavor or sweetness in them in 2008 or 2009 versus other years.

Here, they generally bloom in early to mid May, and the fruit ripens over about a 3 week period in very late Sept. into October. All of mine that are fruiting are seedlings. I did plant some grafted varieties in the past couple of seasons, but none of them are close to bearing size yet.

RE: the second picture Frank posted, I would say that tree is more like 10 to 12 years old, IMO. It wouldn't be nearly that large nor that big of a trunk caliper at 5 years, at least, none of mine were.

Oh, yeah, one more thing, while I'm thinking of it. File this tidbit of information away for future reference -- paw paws are fly pollinated. You will get FAR more fruit to set if you put something really foul-smelling and rotten in the trees a few days before the first blossoms open, and keep it there during the 7-10 days the trees are in bloom. I learned this a few years ago from an article in Michigan Gardener magazine -- there is a guy near Jackson, MI who grows and breeds paw paws, and he hangs either roadkill or dead carp in each of his trees. Too gruesome for me, I use the bait out of Ortho fly traps, I put it in a little plastic cup taped onto the trunk. Works like a charm. Makes me gag when I have to dump it out, but it's a small price to pay for all of the extra fruit.

One observation in line with what denninmi's statement regarding fly pollination of pawpaw.

Here in NE IL, I noticed that as the weather warms, I see small flies, the size of a large mosquito, that looks like a skinny wasp, crawling up and down (at a quick and frantic pace) the trunk of my pawpaw saplings, doing their courtship dance and mating. They also fly when disturbed. A persimmon sapling near the pawpaw saplings is "flyless". Dead pawpaw branches are also "flyless".

These flies are there for about a month or two, during the pawpaw flowering period. Something the pawpaw trunks exude are attracting them, and these flies may be the pollinators. Since my pawpaw saplings are small, I removed the flowers before they open. So, I don't know if the flies are actually the pollinators or just using the pawpaws as orgy pads. Anyone else noticed these flies on their pawpaw?

BTW, spiders have a ball and set up shop close-by to feast. By early summer, the flies are gone.

Then the Japanese Beetles arrive mid summer, and feed on the pawpaw leaves that get the most sun. They feed on semi-young growth that gets sun, while leaving semi-young growth that are shaded unmolested. I think I spend too much time with my pawpaws ; > don't you think?

I'm going to really add a lot of rich compost to my planting holes (craters) before i plant the seedlings, which i may do already this fall... If they should get wiped out over winter... oh well! I'll just order more seed and try again. I think the area i have gets more sun then i first realized and if my neighbor or the power company ever thin out the maples behind me, they'll get almost full sun some day (its south facing)...

Frank, I think you should be able to grow paw paws where you are. I don't know much about La Crosse, had to look it up on mapquest, but you're not that far from Madison. If they survive in the Mad City they should survive where you are. Granted, you're kind of on the edge of the range, but paw paws survive Zone 5 winters all the time. I know they grow in Nebraska, and it gets at least as cold out there when the Canadian polar air sweeps down the Plains as it probably does in SW Wisconsin. I think you'll do fine. When my trees were just babies, Feb. of 1995 (could have been 1994 maybe), we had -30 air temps and -80 windchill for a cople of days. I lost some American Persimons that were planted around the same time, but the paw paws made it without even any dieback.

Nice to know. Yeah..La Crosse is on the warm side of things, especially in the summer. Our avgs are higher then Madison during the warm months of the year and very similar during the winter, although much colder then areas right next to L Michigan...

>I'm going to really add a lot of rich compost to my planting holes (craters)
>before i plant the seedlings which i may do already this fall

What is your soil like? Standard tree planting recommendations are not to amend the soil in the hole. If you have clay soil, adding a lot of compost to a hole can create a bathtub effect, drowning the roots.

Unlike most temperate trees, paw paws do not have much root growth once the leaves have dropped, so there may not be much advantage to planting in the fall.

I have orange clay soil, and the approach I like is to prepare the planting site in the fall. I make a frame of 2X6 boards, a 4 or 6 foot square. Put that where the tree will go, then fill it with compost. In the spring, the compost has settled/broken down quite a bit, and the soil underneath has really changed...I can stick a garden fork in all the way, vs only a couple inches in the surrounding lawn. I think this method avoids the sharp transition between the nice conditions of the planting hole and the hard clay of the surrounding soil.

Alex

I have 4 sets of paw paw plants, 1 with 1/4 days sun, the 2nd 1/2,the 3rd 3/4 and the last full sun. Now I am not trying to rewrite paw paw culture but the ones with the most sun are much larger than the ones with less sun, directly proportionally to the amout of sun.. This is in zone 7

I just planted a Sunflower Pawpaw this spring, and I chose a site that gets morning sun that transitions to afternoon shade. There are evergreens to the north and west to act as a windbreak as well.

Are you going to give your seedlings any protection the first years? I'm thinking about putting either straw bales, styrofoam, or both around it until it gets a bit older (I've read that trees can become more winter-hardy as they mature).

If i don't plant them this fall, they'll spend winter in the garage. I don't know if i would protect them the following winter...probably not.

Frank, I have a friend in Lafarge growing paw paws. He just got his first ripe one last year and he was stoked. One cultivar that he grows is PA Golden. I'm not sure what others he grows. If you come to the scionwood exchange at the farming conference in Feb. he'll be there. I'd be happy to introduce you. He'd probably love to gab about fruit trees.