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Paw Paw Tree

18 years ago

I have an 8 year old beautiful Paw Paw tree in my back yard. Just the past three years it's been broducing fruit in the fall. I have noticed what appear to be sucker plants growing a few feet from the base of the tree. Are these really suck plants or have the seeds been able to grow(I had a party and several of my guests ate some paw paws and I think they might have spit the seeds around or buried them with me not knowing)the new plants are impossible to pull up!

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Comments (3)

laceyvail 6A, WV
18 years ago
Afrter a few years, paw paws begin to sucker wildly.
brandon7 TN_zone7
18 years ago
Even a relatively young seedlings can be difficult to remove because of their large taproots. Of course, suckers will be attached to the mother plant. You should be able to determine which they are with just a tiny bit of digging.

Like laceyvail said, pawpaws do naturally sucker. If your tree is a grafted cultivar, you may especially want to get rid of the suckers. The fruit produced by suckers would likely be inferior to that produced by the grafted cultivar. Yanking the suckers off when they are small will do more to discourage further suckering than cutting them off.
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jgpyke
18 years ago
We had a pawpaw in Indiana, and it suckered like crazy. I just used the lawn mower to keep 'em at bay.

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