The Tropical Fruit Forum

Where did you get seeds of U. myricoides?

Still looking for these seeds...

Ok so after abit of digging I was able to come up with the below list.
These are all the edible I could find.
Am I missing any?
Any stand out for being easy to grow or extra tasty?

Vasconcellea candicans
Vasconcellea cauliflora
Vasconcellea crassipetala
Vasconcellea goudotiana
Vasconcellea microcarpa
Vasconcellea monoica
Vasconcellea palandensis
Vasconcellea parviflora
Vasconcellea pubescens
Vasconcellea quercifolia (hardiest?)
Vasconcellea sphaerocarpa
Vasconcellea stipulata (hardiest?)
Vasconcellea weberbaueri
Vasconcellea x heilbornii


Some other Carica relatives very interesting:

Jarilla heterophylla

Jacaratia mexicana
Jacaratia spinosa

As you know there are 21 (?) species of VAsconcellea and your list has only 14 species. As far as I know majority are edible. But information on most of them is so scarce it's miracle if you can even find pictures. For some of them you can't find pictures.
-monoica stands out because it it's monoiecious
-parviflora has purple flowers
-pubescense has tasty fruits once they are cooked with some sugar
-Babaco is already being commercialized
-according to my information paladensis also has nice tasting fruit, but I haven't tried it yet
-quercifolia is supposed to be hardiest but not according to my experience. But i haven't tested it sufficiently, so i will postpone my judgment until it can be tested more.
-some of species are also resistant to diseases afflicting common papaya and are as such interesting as breeding material
There are some others that might have interesting fruit (werbaueri, sphaerocarpa, stipulata) but there is almost no information available on them so who knows. Best way would be if we could try fruit ourselves, but good luck finding seeds or plants.

For instance, i was incredibly lucky that one member of this forum contacted me and send me some seeds of various Vasconcella's. Unfortunately I had to leave them in someone else's care for month and a half and as result, most of them died because they were not watered regularly. Only one specimen of V. parviflora survived and no specimens of V. paladensis. Parviflora is still alive and well, but since I have only one (male) plant, there is no chance of me getting any seeds (I still need female plant). I have tried contacted various institutions that might have seeds or could send me cuttings but thus far unsuccessfully. But this forum has many members that come from all over the world and I hope that somebody will be able to help me.

Do you have source for other seeds of Vasconcellea species?

Here are some pictures of Vasconcelleas. Most plants in the pictures are mine, but some pictures were taken in Rotterdam:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/131456537@N04/sets/72157651227479228/

I am also looking for seeds of Jacaratia.

And what about shipping to Slovenia?

Hello,
I am searching for seeds of hardy papayas (genus Vasconcellea, but they used to be in genus Carica). Since they are very hard to find outside their natural habitat, I am hoping that members from Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela (from South America) would know where to find seeds for sale or would provide seeds themselves.

Vasconcellea quercifolia-this is one of the easier species to grow. Fresh seeds germinate in 2 weeks (they take longer if they are not fresh) and are relatively undemanding and pest free. They don't mind overwintering in a room with only 5°C and only pest i have problems with are aphids. They even thrive in a room with low humidity and relatively low light. It is definitely highly recommended species for growers who don't have a lot of experience with tropical plants.     

Last year I started reading about so called highland papayas and got really fascinated by them. I ordered some of my seeds online and I got some seeds from one member of this forum (rarefruit). Since I live in the temperate region (USDA zone 6) i knew i will have to find a way to overwinter them indoors. This has proven to be quite a challenge since most of species demand high humidity and a lot of light, together with temperatures above 0°C. As a precaution a have donated one plant of every species that I have to botanical garden in Ljubljana, so in case i fail in keeping rest of them alive, some of the plants will live on and maybe serve as source of seeds in the future. The purpose of this thread is to write about my experiences with growing highland papayas in temperate regions and most importantly how to overwinter them (and how to avoid making same mistakes as me).

Vasconcellea cundinamarcensis (syn: Carica pubescense): this is one of the rare species of Vasconcellea that you can actually find some information on cultivation. That being said, I had by far hardest time keeping it alive. It doesn't like having cold and moist soil at the same time because it's roots start to rot (it is same with all papayas). Twice I have lost all plants because of root rot and once snails eaten all leaves (plants survived, but died in the winter because of the root rot). Now i am planning to sow them for the third time. So the lesson here is: keep them somewhere where snails can't get to them and keep them somewhere worm in the winter. Also, water them very sporadically (colder the temperature, drier the soil).

Vasconcellea goudotiana: compared with V. cundinamarcensis I had very little trouble with growing this species. I have kept them in a place where temperature never dropped under 5°C, with fair amount of sun (although we have a lot of cloudy or foggy days in winter) and I didn't water them much (to avoid root rot). Because there was not enough sun they started dropping leaves, but still kept some of them and have by now stopped dropping them since days are getting longer. But they did make flower buds trough the winter-probably because of stress caused by lack of watering. All my plants have survived and are tallest of all papayas planted last year (30+cm ). If anyone would like to grow a species of highland papaya this is the one I would recommend.

Vasconcellea monoica: this species has been moderately difficult to grow. I had some troubles with those I kept in the same place as V. goudotiana, probably because minimal temperature was too low. Once I moved them somewhere warmer they got better, but i still had problems with leaf edges getting brown and eventually dropping off. This was maybe caused by some disease, but strange thing is that V. monoica was only species with this problem.  Now that they are in a warmer room and days are getting longer i don't have any problems with them.

To be continued...

I am familiar with tradwindsfruit site and I regularly check their site. So far I have all species that they offer. The same goes for sunshine-seeds.
Currently I am looking for V. stipulata, parviflora and cauliflora, but they are turning out to be very elusive and hard to find. I havent managed to find any online stores that have them in store and there are no other sources of seeds.

I would also be interested in these seeds.