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The Fourth International Pawpaw Conference

Frankfort, Kentucky September 1-3, 2016

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Conference Planning Committee Members

Dr. Kirk Pomper (Co-Chair), Mr. Neal Peterson (Co-Chair), Dr. Ron Powell (Co-Chair),

Ms. Sheri Crabtree, Mr. Jeremy Lowe, Ms. Blair Hess, Mr. Eddie Reed, Mr. Andy Ong,

and Ms. Susan Templeton.

About the Front Cover

On the front cover is a photograph of a cluster of the new pawpaw release KSU-

BensonTM. This selection is named after the long serving KSU Land Grant Program

Director, Dr. Harold R. Benson. During his over 30 years as Director, Dr. Benson

supported the KSU Pawpaw program from its beginning with Dr. Brett Callaway, the

program continued establishment under Dr. Desmond Layne, and underwent rapid

expansion under the leadership of Dr. Kirk Pomper.

Emergency Numbers

Kentucky State University Police

Emergency Dispatch: (502) 597-6878

Non-Emergency: (502) 597-6877

Kirk Pomper, Cell Phone Number: 502-330-8450

Eddie Reed, Cell Phone Number: 502-682-3368

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Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………3

Daily Program…………………..………… 4

Pre-Registered Participants………….7

Maps……………………………………………8

The 1916 and 1917 Contest…….…10

Pawpaw Cultivar Histories………….12

Selected Abstracts……………………..16

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Introduction

The North American pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is in the early stages of commercial production. The First International Pawpaw Conference was hosted by the PawPaw Foundation (PPF) on September 9 to 11, 1994, at the Western Maryland Research and Education Center, Keedysville, Md. There were 45 attendees at the conference. The Second International Pawpaw Conference was held on 21 to 22 September, 2001, and was sponsored by KSU and PPF, and took place in Frankfort, Kentucky. More than 100 scientists, nurserymen, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts attended the conference and shared information about the production and use of pawpaw. The Third International Pawpaw Conference was held September 9 to 10, 2011, in Frankfort, Kentucky. The Conference was sponsored by Kentucky State University, the Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association and the PawPaw Foundation. This Conference featured “Pawpaws Around the World”, a discussion of national and international pawpaw variety trials, and a food oriented program.

This year, The Fourth International Pawpaw Conference, sponsored by Kentucky State University, the North American Pawpaw Growers Association, and the Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association, celebrates the 100th anniversary of the American Genetics Association’s 1916 Best Pawpaw Contest. The Fourth International Pawpaw Conference will be a unique experience for scientists, nurserymen, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts to consider 100 years of progress in pawpaw by sharing information on the production and uses of pawpaw! Tours, tastings, invited speakers, a best pawpaw contest, and roundtable discussions on pawpaw will be featured.

The pawpaw program at KSU Land Grant Program was initiated by Brett Callaway in 1990, and was expanded by Desmond Layne from 1993 to 1998. The program has been under the direction of Kirk Pomper since 1998. Current extension activities at KSU include a web site for the dissemination of information on pawpaw to scientists and growers, an annual pawpaw field day which has been presented each fall since 1998, social media, and over 300 phone calls, emails, and letters each year. KSU serves as the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Pawpaw (Asimina species), or gene bank; therefore, germplasm evaluation, preservation, and dissemination have been high priorities for the program. The KSU pawpaw research program has focused on selection of new cultivars, production recommendations, pollination, and propagation approaches.

Kirk W. Pomper, Ph.D. Ron Powell, Ph.D. Interim KSU Director of Land Grant Programs North American Pawpaw Professor of Horticulture Association / Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association Sheri B. Crabtree, M.Sc. Research and Extension Associate in Horticulture Jeremy Lowe, M.Sc. Research and Extension Associate in Horticulture

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Conference Program Thursday, September 1st, 2016 Pawpaw Tour 8:30 am Depart Frankfort from the Cabinet

for Health and Family Services Building (275 E Main St, Frankfort, KY 40601) across the street from the Main KSU Campus. Do not park on the KSU campus.

10:30 am Arrive at England’s Orchard and

Nursery, McKee, KY for nursery and orchard tour

1:00 pm Depart England’s Orchard and

Nursery

Lunch on bus

2:45 pm Arrive Cove Spring Park in Frankfort

3:45 pm Depart Park 4:00 pm Return to Frankfort Dinner on your own

Friday, September 2nd, 2016 Campus Presentations Kentucky State University Cooperative Extension Building 8:00 am Registration and Continental

Breakfast and Entries for Best Pawpaw Contest Submitted. (Parking is at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services Building at 275 E Main St,

Frankfort, KY 40601) across the street from the campus. A shuttle to the Cooperative Extension Building will be provided from the parking area.

9:00 am Welcome

Provost Dr. Candice Jackson (KSU), Kirk Pomper (KSU), and Ron Powell (North American Pawpaw Growers Association/Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association)

9:15 am Recognition of the 100th Anniversary of the 1916 American Genetics Best pawpaw Contest Neal Peterson (Peterson Pawpaws)

Pawpaw Around the World 10:00 am Pawpaws in Romania

Florin Stanica, University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Bucuresti, Romania

10:15 am Pawpaw in vitro Propagation Florin Stanica, University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Bucuresti, Romania

10:30 am Propagation of Pawpaw and All Year Grafting Marko Viher, Slovenia

11:00 am Break

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11:10 am Pawpaw-The Native American Banana Helmut Pirc, Horticultural College & Research Institute Schönbrunn, Austria

11:40 am Propagation of Pawpaw

Stephan von Rundstedt, Bock Bio Science, Bremen, Germany

12:10 pm Lunch 1:00 pm Pawpaw in Japan

Hideka Kobayashi (KSU)

New Topics in Pawpaw 1:30 pm Pawpaw: Production/Market

Research and Outreach to Advance the Development of this Unique Native Specialty Crop Michael A Gold* and Zhen Cai (University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry)

2:00 pm The Ohio Pawpaw Festival and

Improving Native Pawpaw Stands: USDA SARE report Chris Chmiel (Integration Acres, Athens, OH)

2:30 pm Micro-propagation of Pawpaw,

Recent Advancements Jerrin Victor (Magnolia Gardens and Nursery, Magnolia, Texas)

3:00 pm Understanding Controls on Fruit

Production in Wild Pawpaw Patches G. Matt Davies*, Liberty Brigner & Brad Bergefurd (Ohio State University)

3:30 pm Break

3:45 pm A Decade of Pawpaw Fruit Research: A Food Scientist's Perspective Rob Brannan (Ohio University)

4:15 pm Effects Of Hot Water and Acidic Electrolyzed Water on Microbial Load and Quality Characteristics of Pawpaw Fruits Changzheng Wang*, Gidgett Taylor, Lingyu Huang, Cheri Crabtree, Jeremy Lowe, Kirk Pomper, and Cecil Butler (KSU)

4:30 pm Selecting a Better Pawpaw

Jerry Lehman (Indiana Nut Gowers Association)

5:00 pm Acetogenin Update

Kirk Pomper (KSU)

5:30 pm Break and Networking

6:30 pm Dinner in the KSU Student Center Ball Room (Show and Tell Session and State Reports)

Saturday, September 3nd, 2016 Farm Presentations and Roundtables KSU Harold R. Benson Research and Demonstration Farm 9:00 am Pawpaw 101

Kirk Pomper (KSU)

9:30 am Pests and Diseases of Pawpaw Jeremy Lowe (KSU)

9:50 am Processing Pawpaw Sheri Crabtree (KSU)

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10:10 am Bark Inlay Grafting and SARE Project Neal Peterson (Peterson Pawpaws) and Sheri Crabtree (KSU)

10:50 am Break 11:00 am Growing Pawpaw in Ohio

Ron Powell (North American Pawpaw Growers Association/Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association)

11:30 am Grower Round Tables and

Discussion Moderator: Ron Powell (North American Pawpaw Growers Association/Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association)

12:10 pm Lunch 1:00 pm Pawpaw Marketing Round Table

Moderator: Ron Powell (North American Pawpaw Growers Association/Ohio Pawpaw Growers Association)

2:00 pm Orchard Tours, Propagation

Demonstration, and Processing Demonstration

3:15 pm Introduction of KSU-BensonTM 3:30 pm Pawpaw Tasting, Networking, and

Poster Viewing 5:30 pm Best Pawpaw Competition

Winners 6:00 pm Dinner with Featured Speaker Mr.

Andy Moore

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Pre-Registered Attendees Aaron Thompson Adam Hughes Allison Williams Andrew Emery Andy Moore Andy Ong Angie Whitehouse Anthony Petrochko

Ashley McMahon Auke Kleefstra Austin Cliffe Barbara Lehman Barbara Rosholdt Blair Hess Blake Cothron Brian Edgar Brooks Bolyard Candice Jackson Changzheng Wang

Charles Coffey Charles Weibel Charles West Charlotte Fineberg-Buchner Chris Carney Chris Chmiel Chris Durham Chris Gonso Claire McMahon Cliff England

Colleen Anderson Dakarai Carrington Dan Kostka Dan Madigan

Daniel L. Pelzl Darren Bender-Beauregard David M. Shelby David Shelby Debbi Kern Dennis Thomas Dr. Loren Kirchner

Eddie Reed Emma McMahon

Eric Stroud Evan Elford Florin Stanica Gail Kern George Lofton George M. Hale, Jr. Gerald Amyot Guy K. Ames Gwilym Matthew Davies Hank Schweickart Harold Benson Hideka Kobayashi Ilze Sillers Jacob Vincent Jared Sinkowski Jason Neumann Jennifer K. Wilson Jeremy Lowe Jerrin Victor

Jerry Lehman Jim Gilbert Jimmie L. Sizemore Joan Johnson

Joe Curran Joey Allen John Brittain John Sedlacek Joleen Stone Joni Nelson Justin Husher Karen Friley

Karl Kern Ken Bates Ken Drabik Kevin Gurtowski Kevin M. Shea Kevin Madigan Kevin Miller Kim Bailey Kirk Pomper Kum Hui England Kyle Slusher

LeeAnn Lofton Lorette Madigan Lorraine Gardner Louie Rivers Jr. Lupe Rios Mabel Kirchner

Marc Stadler Mario Mandujano Marion Simon Mark Miller Mark Wessel

Marko Viher Martin Stone Megan Gearhart Michael A. Gold

Michael D. Wilson Michael McMahon Mirela Stanica Muriel Ross Nancy Adamson Oriana Kruszewski Owen Rogers Paul Branesky

R. Neal Peterson Ralph Lowe Reza (Amhad) Rafie Rob Brannan Robert E. Johnson Robert Horvat Ron Powell Roy Ross Russell Benz Scott McMichael Sean Spender

Shary Stadler Shelley Spiggle Sheri Crabtree Srijana Thapa Magar Stephan Von Rundstedt Susan Owen Susan Stephens Susan Templeton Ted Beedy Ted Weeden

Terry Powell Trudy Temple Zhen Cai

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Parking for Thursday and Friday Parking is at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services Building (275 E Main St, Frankfort, KY 40601) across the street from the Main KSU Campus. Campus parking is very limited with classes in session.

Although you are encouraged to take the buses, the addresses for the Thursday trip are:

England’s Orchard & Nursery, the intersection of State Hwy 2004 and Chestnut Flat Rd., McKee, KY. The farm is across the street from the intersection. Phone: (606) 965-2228

Cove Spring Park, 100 Cove Spring Rd, Frankfort, KY 40601, Phone: (502) 223-6965

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Directions to Harold R. Benson Research and Demonstration Farm for Saturday: Address for the Farm: 1525 Mills Lane, Frankfort, Kentucky. From Frankfort, travel south on Rt. 127. Cross I-64, then turn left (east) at an intersection with a Chevron gas station, a traffic light, and a “Kentucky State University Research Farm” sign. Follow Mills Lane east for 1.5 miles. The farm is on the right, marked with a green and yellow sign.

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Popenoe, P. (cd.) 1916. Where: are the best papaws, J. Heredity 7:291-296.

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Popenoe, P. (cd.) 1917. The best papaws, J. Heredity 8:21-33.

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(1-7-1 = ShenandoahTM; 8-58 = RappahannockTM; 11-5 = SusquehannaTM; 1-7-2 = WabashTM; 4-2 = PotomacTM)

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Selected Abstracts:

Pawpaws in Romania

Florin Stănică, University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Bucuresti, Romania

Asimina triloba is a relatively new fruit species for Romania but with high prospective to be rapidly extended in many areas. In Romania pawpaw was first introduced in 1926 by Suciu Ioan, an immigrant that returned home with his family from Toledo, Ohio, USA. From few seeds, the oldest pawpaw plant grew in Pianu Nou, Alba County. Other seedlings from the original plant were spread on a limited territory but the new fruit specie remained unknown for the Romanian fruit scientists for nearly one hundred years. Around the year 2000, few Ohio genotype plants were planted in the Bucharest at the Faculty of Horticulture. The collection increased by introducing pawpaw varieties and hybrids from Italy. In 2012, the last varieties of Neal Peterson were grafted and recently, some other genotypes were planted to be tested. The paper presents some information about the pawpaw germplasm existing in Romania.

Presentation title: Pawpaw in vitro propagation

Giuseppe Zuccherelli1, Florin Stănică* 1 Faculty of Horticulture, University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest; 2 Vitroplant Italia

Asimina triloba varieties are propagated exclusively by agamic methods like cutting and grafting, because seed propagation, even it is simple, cannot replicate the valuable genotypes selected in time by passionate people or breeders. The slow growth of rootstock seedlings, the problems related to grafting and the high request of quality planting material for small gardens and orchards convinced us to test the possibilities of pawpaw in vitro propagation. After the successful in vitro propagation of Sunflower variety, new trials were made with Simina selection and Neal Peterson varieties: Allegheny, Potomac, Rappahannock, Shenandoah, Susquehanna and Wabash. Culture initiation was the most difficult phase of the micropropagation process due to the massive shoots endogen infections and polyphenols emission, causing explants browning. After sterilizing, the shoots single nodes were inoculated in test tube on different culture media. The best culture media for the in vitro growing conditions and propagation was a modified DKW medium. Mass proliferation and rooting were successful and the first acclimatized plants were obtained. The paper presents some results relating few pawpaw genotypes micropropagation.

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Understanding controls on fruit production in wild pawpaw patches

G. Matt Davies1*, Liberty Brigner1 & Brad Bergefurd2

1: School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State University, Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Road, Columbus, Ohio, 43210.

2: Ohio State University South Centers, 1864 Shyville Road, Piketon, Ohio 45661

*Corresponding author: Tel: 614 292 3567 Email: davies.411@osu.edu

Pawpaw are increasingly popular in Ohio with a growing market for commercially-produced fruit and significant interest in their collection in the wild. Ohio’s nascent pawpaw industry includes a number of farmers who harvest fruit from wild stands. Although pawpaw trees are common in Ohio, fruit production in the wild often limited. This has restricted the commercial development of the local pawpaw market and the potential for wild collection. Growers and enthusiasts require a better understanding of what limits productivity in the wild and how wild stands can be managed to increase production. Here we will present the results of initial work on pawpaw production in the wild and introduce the objectives of a new collaborative research project involving Ohio pawpaw farmers. We studied the environmental conditions of 20 different pawpaw patches in Columbus, Ohio. We assessed woodland structure and composition, the structure of the pawpaw patches and pawpaw tree architecture. We also assessed total flowering effort and final fruit production in each of our plots. Despite the fact that, on average, pawpaw trees bore 43.69 flowers, the mean number of fruits per tree was only 1.93. However, both of these varied substantially at the tree level with flowering effort ranging from 0 to 274 and fruit production from 0 to 42. More than two thirds of trees had no fruit at all. We used a Generalized Linear Mixed Model to assess controls on tree-level flower and fruit production. Tree size (age) was a key control on both flower and fruit production but factors associated with competition for light and soil resources were also important. Contrary to our expectations more densely stocked plots had greater tree-level fruit and flower production. There was little evidence that flowering effort affected final fruit production. Our analysis provides a starting point for our new project in which we’re working with a number of commercial pawpaw growers who manage wild stands, this will allow us to assess fruit production and quality across a wider range of biological and environmental conditions and, hopefully, to begin to provide commercial and amateur growers with advice on how to manage wild pawpaw patches to increase their productivity.

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Pawpaw: Production/Market Research and Outreach to Advance the Development of this Unique Native Specialty Crop

Michael A Gold -- University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry

Zhen Cai -- University of Missouri Center for Agroforestry

The North American pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a high-value native specialty fruit crop with multiple avenues for commercialization of value-added products. This proposed project will analyze the production and marketing of pawpaw by conducting four research components: a) Production Analysis (PA): utilizes existing, mature pawpaw orchards to study fruit yields and characteristics from numerous cultivars while fine-tuning pawpaw production recommendations; b) Market Research (MR): administering a national market study to survey participants across the pawpaw value chain; c) Consumer Research (CR): surveying consumers through taste tests of fresh fruit and pawpaw products at farmers’ markets and ice-cream parlors in Missouri; and d) Financial Analysis (FA): integrating findings from PA, MR, and CR to evaluate the economic feasibility of pawpaw production, processing, and marketing. Project findings will be disseminated to farmers through outreach activities including workshops, field days, and webinars. Outcomes from this project include: 1) Research-based pawpaw production recommendations for current and new producers; 2) Detailed knowledge on current market size, supply and demand trends, and the competitive environment for producers and processors; 3) Increased consumer familiarity with pawpaw and pawpaw value added products (VAPs); 4) Better understanding of consumer preferences for different attributes of pawpaws and VAPs (e.g., sustainable, locally produced, acceptable price); and 5) An informed understanding on the potential economic benefits from growing and processing pawpaw given different farm characteristics, management practices and VAPs.

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Improving Native Pawpaw Stands: USDA SARE report

Chris Chmiel

Integration Acres, 9794 Chase Rd, Albany, OH 45710

Native pawpaw stands still exist in many parts of its native range in the Eastern US. After locating these stands, work can be done by landowners to mimic a more cultivated setting to increase production. Techniques for improving production include thinning, grafting, fertilizing and pruning.