A Pawpaw Split: The Problem of Dry Pawpaws

On Sept 26 of 2017 I harvested three pawpaws from the Shenandoah. On the pawpaw harvesting chart, I made a note about these three: "picked, soft but not the typical yellow the the Shenandoah." This was the beginning of a new experience for us: late-season pawpaws that seemed dried out. It wasn't just the Shenandoah that was giving us these dried out pawpaws--in 2017 we harvested pawpaws during the entire month of October (in 2016 the harvest only lasted for the month of September), and most of 2017's October pawpaws were fairly dry, not as custardy as pawpaw lovers are accustomed to. More spongy. Many of them still tasted good when eaten fresh, but we also decided to freeze the pulp from a lot of the drier October pawpaws.

A few pawpaws, all from the KSU-Atwood, dried out so much that they cracked wide open while still on the tree.

I didn't like seeing this all that much, but at least it was interesting. It's hard to predict what novelty the pawpaws will throw at us next. Certainly our peach tree provides very limited drama in comparison.

The smallest fruit from this batch was cracked when I harvested it.

You can see another cracked pawpaw at the top of this pic.

This one: we've been letting it dry out completely, and NJ has suggested making a Christmas tree ornament out of it.


I'm not sure why it happened like this--we only lost a few fruit to this on-branch cracking, but the bigger concern was just the dryness of the late-season pawpaws and corresponding lower taste quality. This year I didn't put as much water on the trees as I have in previous years. The leaves stayed green and they produced a lot of fruit, reflecting I'm sure an extensive root system. But maybe without my help they couldn't get enough water to keep the later fruit from drying out? For the 2018 season I'll plan on giving them more water to see if we can get better fruit in October.

Of course, if anyone out there has dealt with the problem of dry late-season pawpaws, I'd love to hear what you've tried and whether it's worked.