America's Forgotten Fruit: The Paw Paw

The majority of fruits we commonly picture in the grocery store (apples, peaches, walnuts, plums, etc.) originated in south-western Asia, in countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, etc.  This region is a veritable "Garden of Eden", with a huge array of useful fruit and nut trees growing naturally throughout the region.  The topography is extremely diverse, including steep mountainous terrain, variable soil, and variable climate types, which produce a wide variety of genetic selection pressures, and hence tremendous natural variation within species.

Kyrgyzstan: The birthplace of our common supermarket fruits


Less commonly known, is that North America has its own list of valuable native food crops, including sunflowers, pumpkins, and strawberries.  But the US also hosts a native, almost forgotten fruit known as paw paw (Asimina triloba) that is currently seeing a resurgence of interest.


Paw paw: America's largest native fruit

Paw paws are known as "America's Tropical Fruit", which taste like a combination of banana, mango, and vanilla.  Although they have this tropical flavor, they are actually a temperate fruit, and grow all the way down to USDA growing zone 5 (viable down to -20°F).  Paw paws have never been commonly available in the US, despite their being native to North America.  But they are seeing a surge of interest as internet chatter has begun to increase, talking up the fruit, and raising awareness of its peculiar looks, texture, and flavor.

Paw paws are North America's largest fruit, with green skin, and yellow/orange fruit.  The fruit starts out firm, but softens as the fruit ripens.  Once the fruit is fully ripe, it may be eaten with a spoon, as if scooping out natural ice cream from its natural container.

Large, lima-bean-shaped seeds are found within the fruit, and most seeds are viable.  The tree itself, however, is a difficult, and unusual tree, extremely slow-growing, and intolerant of full sun.  It's an understory tree, that survives where many other trees can't, despite being as delicate as it is.  It can take over a decade to produce fruit, if grown from seed (though most will produce within five to eight years).

Turning Leaf Ranch will be planting our first batch of paw paw seeds this winter, and we hope to have this tree as part of our ranch for decades to come.

https://news.mongabay.com/2018/09/traditional-kyrgyz-walnut-apple-forests-provide-map-for-sustainable-future/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76d6BBqKGFo

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