Papayuela (carica goudotiana) - are these flower buds?

[KarenRei]

Another plant that is (maybe) trying to flower at too small a size:



Are these flowers?  The tree is only 40-50 cm tall. Though if they are flowers and it did try to fruit, given how fast my papayuelas are growing, by the time any fruit would reach maturity the tree would probably be 3 meters tall, lol 

[KarenRei]

Strange, am I the only one here who grows papayuela?

So far they've been quite easy to grow, fast growing, very nice plants. Pretty foliage, too. I have no idea what I'll think about the taste, though it's reportedly popular in Colombia and not too papaya-like (a good mark in my book).

[omarudy]

I wasn't familiar with the name until I looked it up, it is also called mountain papaya. I grow them too, I'll post some pics later, right now it is too dark outside. The male flowers are much smaller, and out of the three trees that I have, not one is female.

[KarenRei]

I wasn't familiar with the name until I looked it up, it is also called mountain papaya. I grow them too, I'll post some pics later, right now it is too dark outside. The male flowers are much smaller, and out of the three trees that I have, not one is female.

Uck, hope I'm not that unlucky. I forgot to consider that C. goudotiana is one of the dioecious Carica, these could just be male flowers.

I've got three also, it'd be nice to at least be able to start gender-IDing them. Any clue as to how well they take to grafting, aka, male branch onto a female, if necessary?  Then again, if they can flower this small that wouldn't be a problem, I could just keep a male pot-constrained to a reasonable size so long as I have at least one female.

[omarudy]

Here are the flowers, and buds. I dont mind so much as my grandmother has a bunch of trees with fruit at her house, and I am not a big fan of papaya so I was not too damaged when I saw they were all males. I dont know about the variation within this species, but my grandma brought them from Chile.

[shaneatwell]

Literature reports have lots of grafts including interspecific grafts among the various mountain papayas (whose genus is now vasconcellea and separate from the lone carica papaya). In fact babaco can be induced to produce more seeds by grafting onto another vasconcellea. Cleft graft is what Ive seen mentioned.

Graft linky
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/graft-papaya-22977.html

[KarenRei]

Wow, thanks for all the info you two!  Omarudy, looks like it's male blossom buds that I've got, unless the females are similar enough to confuse them. Oh well, hopefully I've got at least one female. 

[omarudy]

The female one is definitely different, I'll try to take a picture of my grandma's tree. If you want I can send you(or anyone else) some scion of the female papaya at my grandma's house to try at grafting, just pm me.

[KarenRei]

The female one is definitely different, I'll try to take a picture of my grandma's tree. If you want I can send you(or anyone else) some scion of the female papaya at my grandma's house to try at grafting, just pm me.

I'd have to wait until I'm in the US, and then sneak it into Iceland, so hopefully it won't come down to that! My other two papayuela are playing catchup right now, they got a bit burned when I set up my grow tent but are both starting to put out a nice leafy growth spurt right now - they should catch up to the current size of the one with the flower buds after maybe 3-4 weeks.

[omarudy]

Hey KarenRei,
The last tree that I have finally bloomed, and its female! The flowers are much bigger, I will post the pictures tomorrow.

[shaneatwell]

Grats!

[KarenRei]

Hey KarenRei,
The last tree that I have finally bloomed, and its female! The flowers are much bigger, I will post the pictures tomorrow.

Wow, congrats, that's great news! 

[omarudy]

Here is the picture of the female flower. They are much bigger.

[KarenRei]

Thanks for that - now I know what to look for! 

[AnnonAddict]

Strange, am I the only one here who grows papayuela?

So far they've been quite easy to grow, fast growing, very nice plants. Pretty foliage, too. I have no idea what I'll think about the taste, though it's reportedly popular in Colombia and not too papaya-like (a good mark in my book).

Oscar does(or used to) sell seeds from his trees, you should PM him to ask.