A pawpaw is a tree of the eastern woods, and its fruit is nothing like the other fruit of those woods: big, soft, and tasting of banana and mango. USDA’s plant guide calls it “the largest edible fruit native to America.” In the 2022 Census of Agriculture USDA printed the acres of fruit-bearing pawpaw for 26 states; seven more are hidden behind the withheld mark, one carries the mark for an amount too small to print, and 16 states have no line at all. Put these three in order, most-to-least.
Tapping assigns 1→3 in order
Tastes like mango and banana? Then it grows where mangoes and bananas grow. Florida. Or Texas. Or California, where everything grows. 🐾
2Answer
The real order is…
Ohio — 146 acres, about 2.65× second-place West Virginia, and close to a third of the 446 acres counted in the whole country. These three are national places, too: the printed figures come within 13 acres of USDA’s national total, so everything it did not print — plus the rounding to whole acres — hides inside that gap. Third place alone is more than three times as big as the whole gap, so no hidden state can reach the top of this list. The warm states are on the list — just not where Biscuit put them. Florida prints 2 acres. California prints 1. Texas carries the mark USDA uses for an amount too small to show as one whole acre. The top four states here are Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Kansas, and the fifth is Maryland. So this is a fruit that tastes tropical growing where it snows. Ohio made it official in 2009, writing the pawpaw into its law books as the state’s native fruit, and Ohio State University’s extension service reports that a 1969 survey “found pawpaws growing in 80 of Ohio’s 88 counties.” Then why so little farmland? The fact sheet does not set out to answer that, but what it points at is a clock rather than a tree. It says “sale of whole fruit can be difficult due to the brief harvest window and its short shelf life,” and that “Practical knowledge suggests that tree-ripened fruit lasts between three to five days at room temperature.” Three to five days. A banana crosses an ocean; a ripe pawpaw barely crosses a county. Add up every fruit-bearing pawpaw acre in the country and you get 446 — less than 0.7 of one square mile, and less than half the 1,036 elderberry acres in the very same census, which is the other new quiz here today. Biscuit’s Field Note takes up a stranger problem: a whole pawpaw patch can stand there in September with no fruit on it at all.
📚 BackgroundUSDA’s own plant guide introduces this fruit in one clause: “The fruit, which is the largest edible fruit native to America, is high in amino acids.” Ohio State University’s extension service says the same thing about its own state — the pawpaw is “a native North American understory tree, known for producing the largest endemic, edible fruit in Ohio” — and that it is nearly everywhere there: “The tree grows throughout the state as was shown by a 1969 survey of native and naturalized woody plants that found pawpaws growing in 80 of Ohio’s 88 counties.” In 2009 Ohio wrote the tree into its law books as the state’s native fruit. So why is a delicious fruit that grows in almost every county of a state farmed on so little land anywhere? The same fact sheet does not set out to answer that, but what it points at is not the tree: “The fruit can be eaten fresh; however, sale of whole fruit can be difficult due to the brief harvest window and its short shelf life. Practical knowledge suggests that tree-ripened fruit lasts between three to five days at room temperature.” Three to five days. A banana crosses an ocean; a ripe pawpaw barely crosses a county. What has grown up instead is a business in pulp — “much of the current industry is centered on the production of pawpaw pulp, which is used to manufacture a variety of value-added products, including jams, sauces, baked goods, ice cream, and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.” That passage is about what makes whole fruit hard to sell, not about why a national acreage is the size it is — and none of these sources says why Ohio is at the top of the USDA table. Neither does this quiz.(USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center, Plant Guide, “Pawpaw — Asimina triloba (L.) Dunal” (prepared by Diana L. Immel, 21 May 2001), section Uses; Ohio State University Extension, Ohioline fact sheet ANR-0187, “Pawpaws: An Alternative Fruit Crop in the Midwest” (16 July 2025), opening section and “Fruit Characteristics and Production.” Quotations unchanged)↗ (opens in a new tab)
Tastes like mango and banana? Then it grows where mangoes and bananas grow. Florida. Or Texas. Or California, where everything grows. 🐾
3Compare
Fruit-bearing pawpaw trees (acres, 2022)
🇺🇸 United States (national)446 acres
Ohio#1146 acres
Most: Ohio (146 acres). The national figure USDA prints is 446 acres. At 640 acres to the square mile, every fruit-bearing pawpaw acre in the country would fit inside a square less than a mile on a side — the whole national orchard, smaller than a neighbourhood.
Note: acres of pawpaw trees old enough to carry fruit in 2022, from USDA’s five-yearly Census of Agriculture. This line counts land on farms — not pounds of fruit, and not the wild pawpaw trees standing in the woods. USDA prints a second pawpaw line that counts young trees as well; the same state leads that one too, and on that line the printed figures come within a single acre of the national total. The United States bar is USDA’s own national figure. USDA NASS. USDA printed a fruit-bearing pawpaw acreage for 26 states. Seven — Hawaii, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, South Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms. Texas carries (Z), the mark for an amount too small to show as one whole acre. Sixteen states have no line in this table at all, among them Oregon, Minnesota, Vermont and Louisiana. The printed figures come within 13 acres of the national figure, so every state USDA did not print — plus the rounding to whole acres — fits inside that gap. The gap is far smaller than the top three figures, so the first three places here are national places. A withheld state is not the same as a state growing none, and a state with no line is not the same as a state with no pawpaw trees. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
USDA printed a fruit-bearing pawpaw acreage for 26 states. Seven — Hawaii, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, South Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms. Texas carries (Z), the mark for an amount too small to show as one whole acre. Sixteen states have no line in this table at all, among them Oregon, Minnesota, Vermont and Louisiana. The printed figures come within 13 acres of the national figure, so every state USDA did not print — plus the rounding to whole acres — fits inside that gap. The gap is far smaller than the top three figures, so the first three places here are national places. A withheld state is not the same as a state growing none, and a state with no line is not the same as a state with no pawpaw trees. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (2022)
Sources
Data as of: 2022
USDA NASS Quick Stats: PAWPAWS - ACRES BEARING, 2022 Census of Agriculture, by state↗ (opens in a new tab) (2026-09-11) — Published values only (the committed raw file holds the API response verbatim). USDA printed a fruit-bearing pawpaw acreage for 26 states. Seven more — Hawaii, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, South Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin — carry the withheld mark (D), which USDA uses when printing a state’s number would give away information about individual farms. Texas carries (Z), the mark for an amount too small to show as one whole acre. Sixteen states have no line in this table at all, among them Oregon, Minnesota, Vermont and Louisiana. The printed figures come within 13 acres of the national figure, so every state USDA did not print — plus the rounding to whole acres — fits inside that gap, which is far smaller than the top three figures. The first three places here are national places. A withheld state is not the same as a state growing none. This site re-runs those checks on every build.
↳ In Quick Stats, pick CENSUS / Census of Agriculture, year 2022, commodity PAWPAWS, short description PAWPAWS - ACRES BEARING, Total domain, and compare states.