harvested when they have already begun ripening and have lost some firmness. This is labor intensive and may result in slight bruising injury, perhaps leading to off-flavors (Peterson 1991). Also, a natural abscission zone forms where the fruit attaches to the peduncle when fruit ripen. "Wiggling" the fruit can determine how well this abscission zone has formed. Ripening fruit also give off a strong aroma. On current cultivars, fruit on a single tree do not ripen within close proximity in time to one another. In this study trees in the population from WV and IN2 had shorter harvest periods (9-14 days) than other selections; this was not related to a shorter bloom period. Although each fruit cluster develops from an individual flower, fruit within a cluster often ripen at different times. Currently, multiple harvests from one tree are conducted to obtain high quality fruit. A more concentrated ripening period such as that in the WV and IN2 populations would be valuable to growers.
The collection of pawpaws housed in the KSU USDA-NCGR for Asimina spp. show great diversity in reproductive characteristics. This diverse collection includes fruit with many different desirable reproductive qualities, which could be useful in future breeding efforts.