Consumer Preference for Pawpaw Cultivars and Kentucky State University Advanced Selections

The pawpaw [Asimina triloba (L.) Dunal] is a tree fruit native to much of eastern North America. Pawpaw is being grown commercially on a small scale in the U.S. and worldwide, with increasing interest in recent years from consumers, restaurants, wineries, and other processors and retailers. Kentucky State University (KSU) has the only full-time pawpaw research program in the world. One of the goals of the program is to enhance and improve the pool of commercially available pawpaw cultivars by conducting germplasm evaluation and breeding, in order to develop superior advanced selections for future release. The objective of this taste trial was to compare consumer preference of currently available pawpaw cultivars to KSU advanced selections. A tasting panel was conducted at the KSU Third Thursday Thing sustainable agriculture workshop. Varieties evaluated included the cultivars Susquehanna, Sunflower, Potomac, Taytoo, Mitchell, and KSU-Atwood^TM; and KSU advanced selections Hi7-1 and Hi4-1. Participants tasted and evaluated the fruit on flavor, texture, and appearance on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent. KSU advanced selections and cultivars compared favorably to currently available cultivars. Flavor of KSU-Atwood, Hi4-1, and Hi7-1 rated significantly higher than the older cultivars Taytoo, Sunflower, and Mitchell. KSU selections and cultivars were also rated highly on texture compared to older cultivars. Appearance did not vary significantly among varieties. There appears to be a trend for recent improved releases to be preferred by consumers, with KSU advanced selections and recent cultivar releases ranking highest in this evaluation, followed by Neal Peterson releases from the early 2000s; and older cultivars selected in the 1960s-1970s being less preferred by consumers.