Looking at something totally unrelated and came across papaya growing guide… * da heck? *
Turns out papaya will fruit in 7 to 11 months. It’s got no freeze tolerance at all, zones 9 and up I think it was. But… hmm… gee 7 months… If they were started in February, that’s August at 7 months old, and first frost in October. Not sure how long the fruit take to grow/ripen or if they can ripen not on the plant. Hmm… A papaya selected to be shorter season and an annual?
Mind you I’ve never eaten a papaya and have food sensitivity to textures so I’m terrible for fresh fruit… But just imagine it!
How timely. I think we must be on the same wavelength Kadence! I was just talking with my Mom last night about the idea of trying to grow Papaya here in zone 7.
I wish for you to one day try a deliciously sweet variety of papaya. They can be absolutely delightful. The best ones Ive had were the “Rainbow” and “Solo” varieties in Hawaii. Every other Papaya since those just seems boring in comparison.
The first step I think will be to acquire lots of seeds. They do have some variability supposedly, but they tend to be grown in huge monocrop fields with only one cultivar. If they are grown near other varieties they do easily cross, so ideally we would get connected with somebody that has a few growing together, and flowering at the same time. Thats the seeds to start with me thinks.
From there we would want to start them early indoors, however the next challenge is outplanting. They do not transplant well from my experience. Direct seeding has always worked best to achieve fast growth. Alternatively we would be choosing a suitable microclimate and strategically protecting the sprouts from the earliest frosts. They are heavy feeders, so a fertile and consistently moist but well draining soil will be required. Being that they are small trees, they do take up a lot of space, so as a landrace project having the land available will be very helpful.
All we need is a few to make it to the finish line before the first frosts. The seeds that come out of those will get us moving in the direction we want. They don’t even have to look fully ripe to have viable seeds.
Even unripe green papaya is lovely to eat. It was one of our favorite ingredients to put into soups.
In this video the gardener had a couple papaya varieties that were more cold hardy. At least one was small fruited. And one not as sweet as more tropical ones. But if bred with the sweeter papayas might get good results.
Good point to bring up, Marvin. I know there are some folks here in the GTS community that aren’t entirely opposed to GMO, but a lot of us definitely prefer to go the non genetic engineering route. Anything coming from Hawaii has a very high chance of being GMO. It is a shame, though, because they really do taste great. There are organic varieties there, but there is a high chance of cross-contamination. Know the source!
Personally, I’m not bothered by the technology, but I definitely care about it being legal to grow whatever I’m growing. I assume if they’re GMO, they have the same restrictions against planting their seeds as every other GMO crop (except for that new purple tomato).
The primary problems with GMO in a landracing context are 1) the US courts have said that the company owns anything which includes their proprietary “product,” and 2) the companies have absolutely no problem with suing those who “violate” their patents, even if only wind driven pollen from an uncontained experimental farm. 3) as a bonus, they do not care if their proprietary product ends up cross-pollinating with wild relatives, which puts the ecosystem at risk.
This is from an older article. “The most important Solo-type cultivars grown commercially in Hawaii include Kapoho, Sunrise, SunUp, and Rainbow. A more detailed description of the different papaya cultivars is presented in Table 1. Kapoho and Sunrise are not genetically modified (GM) cultivars, while Rainbow and SunUp are GM cultivars. The vast majority of papayas grown in Hawaii are of the GM-type.”
It’s not like I need another growing project, but this sounds like a lot of fun. I’m in 5b, so I’m really out of its range, but if I could start it indoors, then move it to a greenhouse outside… it could work.
What if you planted them in airbeds? Would that allow them to grow without transplant shock? Deep enough air bed that got fertilized regularly during the growing season? How big of a tree will it get in one season?
6 to 9 feet, I believe. The problem is that they will grow and fruit, but the fruit doesn’t have time to ripen. The information I found said that with a 9 month growing season the immature fruits are killed by frost.
I wonder if you could force fruiting earlier for the first few generations?
Another possibility is to let it grow the first year and then cut it back. They apparently pop right back from the root.
Hmm… with a 4 month growing season, I’d have to start them inside at the latest in January. First frost isn’t until the end of September. If they were in a greenhouse outside, that would give me at least until late October early November when the daily cold outside would likely be too much for them to handle. And if I renovate the south side of the house this year like I want, they’d have a nice, big window to sit in and soak up the rays.
Regarding growing Papaya in colder climates, I just came across this link:
According to this they can grow easily in pots without taking up much space. This offers a bit of hope for those of us willing to take the time to bring plants indoors to overwinter them.
We could landrace them to encourage smaller growth habit and earlier harvest times. Incrementally we could select for more and more cold hardiness.
The pots in that picture are surprisingly shallow too!
“Expect fruits to mature in 6-9 months.” Okay, so it sounds like it’d take at least a season for the tree to grow, then another season for the fruit to mature? Because the tree can’t put on fruit as soon as its little cotyledons pop up…
I told my husband last night that we were going to build a small greenhouse in our house so the papaya can stay warm all winter. He looked at me suspiciously…
These seeds are at least ten years old, possibly as much as 15, so likely not GMO. I will do a germination test, and if any germinate I’ll send the remainder of the seeds to whoever is interested.
“Papaya fruit should be harvested after color break - when some yellow shows on the fruit - but before fully yellow (about 9 to 14 months after planting). Fruit for home consumption is best harvested when half yellow. If left to ripen on the tree, the fruit is often damaged by fruit flies and birds.”
Looks like 3-4 months for flower to picking fruit.
I’ll be happy if the tree grows at all and survives the chill here. 