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 Photograph of a fruit cluster of K8-2, a newly released KSU pawpaw variety. Photo by Kirk Pomper.

pawpaw.kysu provides information on how to grow and use fruit from the North American pawpaw tree.

KSU Pawpaw Program

The pawpaw (Asimina triloba) fruit has both fresh market and processing appeal, with a tropical like flavor that resembles a combination of banana, mango, and pineapple. Kentucky State University has the only full-time pawpaw research program in the world as part of the KSU Land Grant Program. Pawpaw research efforts are directed at improving seed and clonal propagation methods, developing orchard management recommendations, conducting regional variety trials, understanding fruit ripening processes, developing fruit storage techniques, and germplasm collection and characterization of genetic diversity.

USDA National Clonal Repository for Pawpaw   

Since 1994, Kentucky State University has served as the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository (NCGR), or gene bank, for Asimina species (pawpaw), as a satellite site of the NCGR repository at Corvallis, OR. There are over 2,000 accessions (trees) from 17 states that are planted on 10 acres at the KSU farm. We are attempting to evaluate the genetic diversity contained in wild pawpaw populations across its native range so that unique material can be added to the KYSU repository collection; this potentially rich source of useful genetic traits will be used in breeding efforts.

Pawpaw News

Everyone's got pawpaw fever (Maclean's, 11/02/09)

A Taste of the Tropics (Wichita Eagle, 10/18/09)

Purchase pawpaw trees from the KY Division of Forestry that were grown from KSU seed stock! (10/14/09)!

Search the Pawpaw Patch for Sweet Goodness (09/29/09)

Pawpaw on the Menu as Taiwanese visit Purdue (09/26/09)

KSU Releases New Pawpaw Variety! (09/18/09)

Westminster Orchard Specializes in Pawpaws (09/18/09)

Pawpaw: Sweet, soft and largely ignored (Virginian-Pilot, 09/09/09)

Praising Pawpaws: Fruit prized by early Indians and Colonial Americans is poised to make a comeback (Winston-Salem Journal, 08/31/09)

Growing with Phipps: Let's hear applause for pawpaw (Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 08/29/09)

KSU Pawpaw Field Day on September 17, 2009

Ohio Pawpaw Festival in Athens, Ohio on September 19 and 20, 2009

Pawpaws Gain Standing as Kentucky Crop (6/28/09)

Pomper and Crabtree win Shepard Award for Pawpaw Research (6/18/09)

Join the New Pawpaw Discussion Group

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