I took a shot at growing Waimanalo and Improved Sunrise here in Pinellas County, FL. I have always enjoyed eating these solo papayas but have never really been a fan of the Red Lady or similar.
They are producing tasty fruit. Some of them have been tiny, some have been reasonably sized and a few have been similar in size to those grown in Hawaii. A lot of the small ones have been from a female plant so perhaps some of this is expected.
Several of the fruit are not the most beautiful things on the outside- seems like mostly black spot vs. ringspot virus at this point but I'm not expert. To date this has been cosmetic only and doesn't affect the actual fruit.
For me, the jury is still out and I'm on the fence of starting some new plants to replace these. (They're getting tall and will be 2 years old so I'm sure old age, virus and disease will be coming.) I've proven they can do "OK" here but I feel they're not performing up to their genetic potential. My timing was also bad as we were moving and I had them in pots for too long (planted seeds Feb 2022 and put in ground Sept 2022) so I'm wondering if I can improve on some things next time around.
Have you grown Hawaiian/solo papayas here in FL? What has your experience been?
Topic: Hawaiian papaya results in FL (Read 341 times)