2018 ASHS Annual Conference

The North American Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a tree fruit native to the Eastern U.S. which is being produced in commercial orchards across the U.S. and internationally, with a small but growing market. There are approximately 50 pawpaw cultivars available, with many of these varieties producing low yields with fruit sizes of 120 grams or less. Pawpaw varieties with fruit weighing over 120 grams are considered to have a large enough fruit size for commercial sale and processing. New high yielding cultivars with excellent fruit quality would further assist in the development of the pawpaw industry. Kentucky State University serves as the National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Pawpaw. Two goals of the Repository research efforts are germplasm acquisition and evaluation. The repository contains over 2000 accessions from 16 different states; additionally, both open pollinated seedlings from superior genotypes and crosses of superior selections have been incorporated into the repository collection. Fruit from five KSU advanced selections (G4-25, G6-120, G9-109, Hi 4-1, and Hi 7-1) were compared to fruit from the commercially available cultivars ‘KSU-Atwood^TM’ ‘KSU-Benson^TM’, ‘Mango’, ‘Sunflower’, and ‘Susquehanna’ on the basis of fruit weight, percent seed, and soluble solids. The selections Hi 4-1, G4-25, and ‘KSU-Atwood^TM’ had the largest fruit, averaging over 200 grams per fruit. Hi 4-1 and ‘Susquehanna’ had the lowest percent seed (4.9% and 6.1%), while Hi 7-1 had the highest (11.7%). ‘KSU-Benson^TM’ had the lowest Brix reading (16.7) while the selections Hi 4-1, G9-109, and ‘Susquehanna’ had the highest levels at over 25 brix. Several advanced selections show potential to be promising new releases and have been budded onto seedling rootstock for further evaluation.