Kentucky Champion Pawpaws Description

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Kentucky Champion ™ Pawpaws are the "Big Daddy" of the Pawpaw Forest. This tree is remarkably resilient. It's a good candidate for climates that are challenged for growing-degree-days (like southern England and northern Europe).

The Kentucky Champion pawpaw tree is the earliest bearing cultivars of all commercially available pawpaw trees. 

 

Kentucky Champ's pawpaws (fruit) are not as sweet as some pawpaws and have a mild or mellow mango banana taste with pineapple and coconut with a raspberry aftertaste. A high quality early ripening pawpaw.

 

The Kentucky Champ's pawpaws are large and tasty averaging about 230 grams. The seed-to-pulp ratio is good (about 8.3%). The skin is attractive and durable; it resists dark spots, bruising and other discolouring. The pulp is firm and golden-orange with a melony-orange flavour and pleasant lingering aftertaste. It's sweet with a subtle tartness that's been likened to pineapple or raspberry. The tree appears to be self-fertile.

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Common Names: Hillbilly Mango, Hillbilly Banana, Hillbilly Pawpaw, Indiana Banana, Hoosier Banana, Poor Man's Banana, Pawpaw, Kentucky Banana.

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Pawpaws (Asimina Triloba) are related to custard apples and cherimoya, in the sugar apple family, and yet they grow in the temperate zone, having moved north as Ice Age glaciers receded. Flavours of mango, melon, banana, raspberry and pineapple come from this creamy fruit. Like many fruits, if you don’t know what you’re doing and you let them get bruised, or you pick them under-ripe they won't taste very good!