Kentucky Legend "Titan"

A legendary pawpaw tree with huge tasty fruits. 


Strengths


Weaknesses



Fruit Description


Kentucky Legend "Titan" is a mid-to-late season pawpaw tree that exhibits gigantism in the leaves and fruits like a polyploid.  Seeds are scalloped and feathery with 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 –  to yield a lot of pulp in a short time.   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.   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.  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 Legend-Titan variety appears to be a polyploid sibling to those varieties, with vestigial seeds that are sterile.  The tree is quite productive. The fruits are an exceptional size with a good flavor, and a low seed ratio along with a longer-than-usual shelf-life.  The flavor is "Sunflowerish".  The seeds resemble Sunflower seed-color and finish.  The "scalloped" fluted-seed shape is new.


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.