Pawpaws
America's largest native fruit, and the modern breeders bringing it back from obscurity.
The first named cultivar in American history
Uncle Tom holds a genuinely singular distinction: documented in an 1905 book on pawpaw cultivation, it's the first pawpaw variety ever formally named — predating essentially every other named cultivar grown today.
Breeder Neal Peterson's own published research found something sobering: of more than 50 pawpaw cultivars named between 1900 and 1950, only two — Sweet Alice and Middletown — survive in cultivation today.
Kentucky State University and the modern breeding renaissance
Kentucky State University runs the only full-time university pawpaw research program in the world, established in 1990, and has released three trademarked cultivars: KSU-Atwood, KSU-Benson, and KSU-Chappell.
Neal Peterson began his own pawpaw breeding project in 1980 while working as a USDA economist. He planted 800 seedlings at the University of Maryland in 1982, and by 1996 had narrowed 1,500 trees down to the 18 best-tasting; seven of his selections are now trademarked and sold as "Peterson Pawpaws," widely considered the modern gold standard for the fruit.