HI
Red lady papaya -
Early, vigorous, productive, and tolerant to papaya ring spot virus. Plants begin to bear fruit at 60-80 cm height and have over 30 fruits per plant in each fruit-setting season. Fruits are short oblong on female plants and rather long-shaped on bisexual plants, weighing about 1.5-2 kg. Flesh is thick, red, with 13% sugar content, and aromatic.
In Papaya, Red Lady 786 variety (Taiwan) is the best variety. It is producced by M/s. Knownyou company of Taiwan. Source the seeds from a reliable supplier and raise your own nursery.
Papaya is a tropical, plant, very sensitive to frost. Optimum temperature is 25 - 30° C and
minimum 16° C. The suitable ph value is between 6 and 6.5. The well-drained or sandy loam soil with adequate organic matter is most important for the papaya cultivation. In high rainfall area, if drainage is poor and roots are continuously drenched for 24 to 48 hours, it may cause the death of the plants. Sticky and calcareous soils are not good as rain water may accumulate in the soil even only for a few hours. In this case, higher raised bed and drainage ditch are recommended.
The growing field should be irrigable and kept at suitable soil moisture which is necessary for the growth of papaya plants, although dry climate at the time of ripening is good for the fruit quality.
Continuous cropping in the same field may result to poor growth and cause disease problem of papaya trees. Papaya does not like strong, cool, hot, dry or salty wind. It is better to grow in sheltered but full sunshine place. Staking and/or windbreak can decrease the damage to plants under strong wind.
Price of the seeds you need to enquire fromthe nearest supplier.
Seed germination:
The optimum temperature is 21 - 27° C, and of radical emergence is 19 - 29 °C. it take 1 - 4 weeks from sowing to emerge depending on the temperature. The seed may be treated with Thiram (TMTD) W.P. before sowing to control the fungus diseases at young stage.
Sowing method:
It may be sown directly, but normally, it is better to be seeded to raise seedlings and transplanted.
Spacing:
A 40-60 cm high bed is required if the soil is not well drained. Normally, the distance
between rows is about 2-2.5 m, and 2 m between plants (or 3m x 3m when grown at
sloping land, or 2.7 m of distance between beds for the tractor practice). The total
number of plants for each hectare is about 2,000 to 2, 5000. In case of eradication of
undesirable sexual or virus infected plants later, the distance between plants at
beginning of planting may be 1.2-1.5 m.
Pollinator Plants:
Minimum10-20% hermaphrodite plants are required for pollination.
Intercrop with the newly-planted long term fruit trees such as orange.
Short term crop such as corns or vegetables may also be considered but not
Necessary.
In general, papaya takes six months to flower and another five for harvesting; but it may vary according the climate conditions and management.
Regards
Ashwini
