PAW PAW with botanical name Asimina triloba, is a small deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and Canada, producing a large, yellowish-green to brown fruit. It belongs to the genus Asimina in the same plant family (the Annonaceae) as the custard-apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, ylang-ylang and soursop.
The pawpaw is a patch-forming (clonal) understory tree found in well-drained, deep, fertile bottom-land and hilly upland habitat, with large, simple leaves. Pawpaw fruits are the largest edible fruits (not counting gourds, which are typically considered vegetables rather than fruit for culinary purposes, although in botany they are classified as fruit).
Pawpaw fruits have a sweet, custardish flavor somewhat similar to banana, mango, and cantaloupe, and are commonly eaten raw, but are also used to make ice cream and baked desserts. The fruit of the pawpaw is a large, yellowish-green to brown berry, 2–6 in (5–16 cm) long and 1–3 in (3–7 cm) broad, weighing from 0.7–18 oz (20–500 g), containing several brown/black seeds 1/2 to 1 in (15–25 mm) in diameter embedded in the soft, edible fruit pulp. The conspicuous fruits begin developing after the plants flower; they are initially green, maturing by September or October to yellow or brown. When mature, the heavy fruits bend the weak branches down.
DEVELOPMENT
The tree commonly grows in floodplains and shady, rich bottomlands, where it often forms a dense, clonally spreading undergrowth in the forest, often appearing as a patch or thicket of individual small slender trees. Pawpaws are not the first to colonize a disturbed site (arriving roughly four years after a clearcut), but may become dominant and slow the establishment of oaks and hickories. Although shade-tolerant, pawpaws do not persist in undisturbed old growth forest. Pawpaws spread locally primarily by root suckers; sexual reproduction by seed does also occur, but at a fairly low rate.
Pawpaw flowers are insect-pollinated, but fruit production is sometimes limited as few if any pollinators are attracted to the flower’s faint or sometimes non-existent scent. The flowers produce an odor similar to that of rotting meat to attract blowflies or carrion beetles for cross pollination. Other insects that are attracted to pawpaw flowers include scavenging fruit flies, carrion flies and beetles. Because of irregular fruit production, some believe pawpaw plants are self-incompatible, requiring cross-pollination between trees of different clones (patches).
The fruits of the pawpaw are eaten by a variety of mammals, including raccoons, gray foxes, opossums, squirrels, and black bears.
The disagreeable-smelling leaves, twigs, and bark of pawpaws contain natural insecticides known as acetogeninsPawpaw leaves and twigs are seldom consumed by rabbits, deer, or goats, or by many insects. However, mules have been seen eating pawpaw leaves in Maryland.
CULTIVATION
In cultivation, lack of successful pollination is the most common cause of poor fruiting. Cross-pollination of at least two different genetic varieties of the plant is recommended and growers often resort to hand pollination or to use of pollinator attractants such as spraying fish emulsion or hanging chicken necks or other meat near the open flowers to attract pollinators. While pawpaws are larval hosts for the zebra swallowtail butterfly, these caterpillars are usually present only at low density, and not detrimental to the foliage of the trees.
Pawpaws have never been cultivated for their fruits on the scale of apples (Malus domestica) or peaches (Prunus persica), primarily because pawpaw fruits ripen to the point of fermentation soon after they are picked, and only frozen fruit will store or ship well. Other methods of preservation include dehydration, production of jams or jellies, and pressure canning (using the numerical values for bananas).
Propagation
Trees are easily grown from seed. Germination is hypogeal and cotyledons remain within the seed coat. Strictly speaking, hypogeal means the cotyledons stay in the soil, acting as a food store for the seedling until the plumule emerges from the soil on the epicotyl or true stem. However, pawpaw seeds have occasionally been observed to emerge from the ground and form the true stem and plumule above ground. Desirable kinds (cultivars) of pawpaw are propagated by chip budding or whip grafting.
Seeds will lose viability if they dehydrate to 5% moisture. The seeds need to be stratified, achieved by storage for 9 weeks at 5 degrees C, losing their viability if stored for 3 years or more. Some seeds survive if stored for 2 years.
Nutrition
According to a report from the Kentucky State University, raw pawpaw (with skin) in a 100 gram amount provides 80 Calories and is a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of vitamin C (22% DV), magnesium (32% DV), iron(54% DV) and manganese (124% DV). The fruit also contains a moderate amount (10–19% DV) of vitamin A (11% DV).
Phytochemicals
Phytochemical extracts of the leaves and fruit contain acetogenins, including the neurotoxin, annonacin. The seeds and bark contain the chemical asimitrin and other acetogenins, including asimin, asiminacin and asiminecin.
Effect on insects
Due to the presence of acetogenins, the leaves, twigs, and bark of pawpaw trees can be used to make an organic insecticide. The one notable exception is the zebra swallowtail butterfly (Eurytides marcellus), whose larvae feed on the leaves of various species of Asimina, conferring protection from predation throughout the butterfly’s life, as trace amounts of acetogenins remain present, making them unpalatable to birds and other predators.
The major inputs for commercial PAW PAW farming are; LAND, IMPROVED CULTIVARS, TRAINING, FERTILIZER, DISEASE AND PEST CONTROL, FINANCE and MARKET.
LAND
Procuring Land for such commercial farming has to be done by professionals who have the eagle eye to decode the soil texture without much examination. It is also easier to source for land for agriculture through professionals because they have extensive network and can arrange Land for you in short notice and in a cost effective manner. There is little need to purchase land for farming in large scale from the beginning as this will tie down available capital, thus it is advisable to lease and subsequently pay for the land from the proceed of the farm. BUSINESS ADVISORY NETWORK is a guru in this regard and will help you arrange choice farm land at the best rate, all you have to do is to talk to us.
TRAINING
We will guide you on best planting season, spacing, fertilizer type, how to source fertilizer, fertilizer application. Weed control, Crops you may intercrop with PAW PAW, the effects of intercropping on PAW PAW yield, Storage and processing.
FINANCE
The central bank of Nigeria has a lot of incentives/ credits for commercial farmers at a reduced interest rate of 9% per annum. Most of these are organized by the central bank of Nigeria although accessed through the commercial bank. BAN will guide you on how to source credit under any of these credits listed below;
Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) The Fund guarantees credit facilities extended to farmers by banks up to 75% of the amount in default net of any security realized. The Fund is managed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, through this guarantee it is easy For commercial banks to loan to farmers not fearing
Agricultural Credit Support Scheme (ACSS) ACSS funds are disbursed to farmers and agro-allied entrepreneurs at a single-digit interest rate of 8.0 percent. At the commencement of the project support, banks will grant loans to qualified applicants at 14.0 per cent interest rate. Applicants who pay back their facilities on schedule are to enjoy a rebate of 6.0 per cent, thus reducing the effective rate of interest to be paid by farmers to 8.0 per cent.
Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS) This credit scheme is specifically targeted to finance the country’s agricultural value chain (production, processing, storage and marketing). The maximum interest rate to the borrower under the scheme shall not exceed 9 per cent, inclusive of all charges.
Nigeria Incentive Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending ( NIRSAL) Risk is the single-most important factor that prevents banks from lending to agriculture. To change banks’ perception that agriculture is a high-risk sector, NIRSAL has a USD300 Million Risk-Sharing Facility that it uses to share their losses on agricultural loans through Credit Risk Guarantees. NIRSAL shares risk with banks ranging from 30% to 75% of face value depending on segment.
This also includes a guarantee fee of 1% per annum on outstanding protected principal and interest. Up to 40% of interest cost rebated to select value chain participants every 90 days if loan remains in good standing (no partial or full default). All crops, livestock and related supportive economic activity across the value chain are supported by this facility.
The news is that government is willing and doing everything to encourage farming in Nigeria because that’s where the country straight lies. Nigeria is endowed with arable land and fresh water resources when viewed as a whole with approximately 61 million hectares of the land cultivable while the total renewable water resources is about 280 km3/year; which include river Niger, river Benue, lake Chad, Osun river, Hadejia River, Bonny river and a host of others. The major soil types in Nigeria, according to FAO soil taxonomist are fluvisols, regosols, gleysols, acrisols, ferrasols, alisols, lixisols, cambisols, luvisols, nitosols, arenosols and vertisols. These soil types vary in their potential for agricultural use according to FAO.
Nigerian soils can be classified into groups made up of four (climatic) zones that are soil associations. The groups are:
- Northern zone of sandy soils
- Interior zone of laterite soils
- Southern belt of forest soils
- Alluvial soils Zones
Northern zone of sandy soils: This area lies in the very northern parts of the country. This area lies in the extreme north with proximity to the fringes of the fast- encroaching Sahara desert. It is characterized by soils formed by deposition of sand by the wind. These soils might have been formed from wind-sorted desert sands that accumulated over long periods of time when the Sahara desert encroached several kilometers south of its present limits. The soils of this zone are very good in the production of groundnut, sorghum, cowpea, and millet.
Interior zone of laterite soils: This zone is made up of a mixture of sand and clay. They are grey to black clay, poorly drained and seasonally flooded forming the “fadama”. The Biu Plateau has rich soil that is productive and offers prospects for the expansion of the areas of cotton production, soybeans, yam and other legumes.
Southern belt of forest soils: Soils in this zone broadly represent those of the humid, tropical forest climate zones of the south where the wet season is long, the harmattan season short and forest cover is dense. Local soil types depend largely on parent rock; where the underlying rocks are granite or clay, the soils is a rich clayey loam. These soils are very good in growing crops like cocoa, oil palm, rubber, Cassava.
Zone of alluvial soils: These soils are found along the flooded plains of rivers, deltas, along the coastal flats. This zone extends from the coastal inland and runs along the valleys of the Niger and the Benue rivers, thus cutting across the vegetational zones. Soils in this zone are characteristic of fresh-water soil of grey to white sand, grey clay and sandy clay with humid topsoil. Another group consists of brownish to black saline mangrove soils, with a mat of rootlets. This soil type is very good for rice etc.
FARM EQUIPMENT
BAN will also help in securing farming equipment. This may be achieved through the federal and state government partnership with the support of any of the credit schemes. Through this farm equipment can be acquired or leased.
MARKET
Demand for PAW PAW is high both locally and internationally. It is important to point out that Nigeria is yet to produce enough paw paw for local consumption so investment in this area will yield great returns.
SECURITY
Security of the farm is of utmost importance, thus adequate security must be put in place to eliminate/ reduce pilferage in the farm.