Kentucky Legend "Titan"

A legendary pawpaw tree with huge tasty fruits. 

Strengths

• Large fruits up to 800g

• Heavy fruit production

• Flavor liken to pineapple

• Seeds are about 3.5% by weight

• Thin seed sack

• Excellent limb angles

• Can be picked before it is ripe

• Long shelf life

Weaknesses

• Fruit splitting in some years

• Feathery vestigial seeds appear to have a lower germination rate (** footnote 4/30/25)

• Sun-scald on some fruits

Fruit Description

Kentucky Legend "Titan" is a mid-to-late season pawpaw tree that exhibits gigantism in the leaves, flowers, and fruits (ref pictures below).   Seeds are scalloped and feathery with almost no sack and they appear to be sterile. The seed ratio is 3.5% by weight. The variety produces fruits averaging around 360 grams that appear to be like a Lehman variety.  The largest fruits are 700-800 grams.  In 2023, several fruit samplers likened the flavor to pineapple.  The texture is firm. Fruits can be picked several days before ripe and continue to  ripen up – unlike most other pawpaw fruits.  The fruits keep well without refrigeration, and they clean easily.   Most of the fruits will ripen in Sparta, NC at 3,000 ft elevation with limited heat units.  The late fruit can be picked before the first freeze and allowed to finish  ripening indoors. 

Pollination and Fruit Bearing

The Kentucky Legend "Titan" tree blooms early and it bears fruit at about the same time as NC1 with a long fruit-bearing window with some fruits early in the season and some late in the season.  The tree pollinates easily for a heavy crop-load of 40 lbs or more in a year. The limb-angles are excellent but they can require additional support especially when the huge fruits are in clusters weighing several pounds.  Heavy rain can cause some of the fruits to split with losses up to 20%.   Sun-scalding occurs on some fruits. 

Background 

The origin of the Kentucky Legend "Titan" variety has been traced back to a batch of experimental seeds that were presented to Cliff England in Sandgap, KY, by Jerry Lehman around 2010.  The seeds were a cross of Jerry's Big Girl and Jerry's Delight, and these varieties have won awards at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival for large sized fruits and good flavor.   KY Legend-Titan was genetically evaluated in 2024 to have an additional chromosome fragment like Jerry's Big Girl (ref * note).  Jerry's Big Girl is a cross between Sunflower and Sam Norris 15, and Jerry's Delight is from an open-pollinated  KY 8-2 (KYSU Atwood).  Sam Norris 15 was the result of a colchicine-experiment on a pawpaw-variety with small-fruit that was nearly seedless.  

The purpose of Mr. Lehman's breeding-experiment was to produce a seedless or nearly seedless pawpaw-fruit.  The same batch of Lehman-seeds produced Lehman 1 through 11 owned by Cliff England at England Orchard and Nursery, and all of those seedling-tree-varieties are exceptional for good size and flavor.  The KY Legend "Titan" tree is productive.  The fruits are an exceptional size with a good flavor with a low seed ratio along with a longer-than-usual shelf-life.  The original tree has produced seeds with an apparantly lower germination rate so far (** 4/30/35 footnote), and they resemble Sunflower pawpaw seed-color and finish.  The "scalloped" fluted-seed shape is new.  (3/28/25 addendum: Jerry's Big Girl is reported to have similarly shaped seeds).

Unfortunately Mr. Lehman did not survive a tractor accident, and the legend of Mr. Lehman's pawpaw breeding will remain a mystery until perhaps some day a geneticist can evaluate the origins of his varieties.    Hence this most unusual pawpaw specimen is named according to the "legend" of Mr. Lehman's plant-breeding expertise.   The first year I saw this tree with fruit -- I concluded rather quickly -- that there was no way it was just the luck of draw on a chance pawpaw seedling -- and that it had to come from a purposeful breeding experiment.  Whether it is truly a "Lehman" variety remains to be seen for certain. 

*10/12/24 Update:  The KY Legend Titan pawpaw was genetically tested to have an additional chromosome fragment.  Jerry's Big Girl has the same chromosome fragment.  This implies that the KY Legend "Titan" originated from Jerry's Big Girl as one of the parents.   It is no longer a "legend" that the tree originated from Mr. Lehman's varieties. 

** 4/30/25 Update:  4 seeds germinated out of a batch of 43 seeds, see picture: