Papaya pushing flowers?

[shaneatwell]

Of everything I've planted the last 6 months, our mexican papaya has done the best. I've been told I have the 2nd worst soil in san diego county and I have pics to prove it . Anyway, I poked about 20 seeds in the ground late winter. Watered them for a couple weeks and nothing happened. It was my 4th attempt so I threw in the towel, mulched the area and planted some kangaroo paw. A month or two later a dozen popped out of the mulch! That was march/april. Culled it down to the 4 strongest over time. 3 have a single stalk with tons of leaves all down the stalk. The 4th branched near the base and has 4 stalks. Now they're all about 3.5ft tall and I think pushing flowers (2nd pic). Very exciting.





Camera messed up the colors, but you get the idea.

These are growing in a 2x2x2ft pit of clay amended with composted steer manure.

As soon as I can sex the flowers, I'll remove two to leave a single male and female.

[Tropicdude]

Yep!

[val]

Hi good luck with your papayas! I planted 9 or so close together, in sand with no mulching and occasionally flooding the area but mostly forgot about. Even under those conditions,  they have begun to produce many fruits. Right now there are about 40 fruits and the plants are still blooming and setting fruit. I'm so impressed I'm actually going to take better care of them. I hope this is incouraging to you.

[JeffDM]

My Red Lady papaya has finally flowered.
I planted the seed on 8/30/12 and placed the seedling in its current pot on 10/27/12.
I thought they would grow quite a bit faster than this.
Any guesses as to what type of flower (male/female) it is?

[jegpg1]

Jeff, those flowers do not become fruits. Thee ones that do are fat, looks like miniature papaya within the flower.

[Mike T]

That is a bisex papaya and the fruits that will form will be elongate, more likely to be a red and will taste better than fruit from a female.

[jegpg1]

Jeff, keep us posted on the progress of those flowers. I want to see if they become fruits.

[jcaldeira]

...

....
As soon as I can sex the flowers, I'll remove two to leave a single male and female.

Congrats on the flowers.  I think you're wise to cull the plants down to one or two. 

There's a good chance you won't need to leave a male plant.   They seem to fruit just fine with no male nearby.  Not sure if this is because there are others in the neighborhood or the hermaphroditic nature of many papaya.  I'd like to hear what others think on this.

[Mike T]

No question it is a hermie alright.Male flowers are on stalks,females are fatter.It will fruit fine on its own but maybe have a few more with a male or unrelated hermie around.Fruit setting in hermies is influenced by temp and humidity as well as pollinators of course.

[JeffDM]

I didn't mean in any way to hijack this topic thread, but I thought the moderators wanted to keep down the number of open threads and post related comments together.
I'll post more pictures as the flowers develop.
 

[Tim]

JeffDM - you're not hijacking anything, unless you're going off topic. 

[JeffDM]

I just noticed that this flower on the Solo Sunrise (the pot next to the Red Lady) has started to open.
It looks like a better prospect.

[Tropicdude]

Red Lady, has no male trees,   certified seed, you have about a 2/3 chance of it being a hermaphrodite, and 1/3 chance of it being a female.

fruit from hermie plants will be elongated like MikeT said.  and are preferred commercially, as the plant will produce more fruit weight per tree, and ship better.

Anyway congrats on the flowering, I am sure you will enjoy the Red Lady.  they are really sweet. 

[shaneatwell]

...

....
As soon as I can sex the flowers, I'll remove two to leave a single male and female.

Congrats on the flowers.  I think you're wise to cull the plants down to one or two. 

There's a good chance you won't need to leave a male plant.   They seem to fruit just fine with no male nearby.  Not sure if this is because there are others in the neighborhood or the hermaphroditic nature of many papaya.  I'd like to hear what others think on this.

Everything I've read says Mexican has male and female but no hermaphrodites. Unlike JeffDM's plants.

[Tropicdude]

Looking up my reference from previous post,  the Red Lady has a 50/50 chance of female to Hermaphrodite.  its the Red Maradol that has the 66:33% ratio.

Most Mexican varieties in the past were the Red Maradol.  I believe these are being substituted to newer hybrids like Red Lady,  "Caribbean red"  and others that have some PSRV tolerance.  Red Maradol has none, and a farmer that plants that variety risks getting wiped out.

[shaneatwell]

In the male vs. female identification, or male vs. female/hermaphrodite, how big do they have to be to tell the difference? Do all the male flowers show up as buds at the same time, or do they split latter? All my flowers look the same, mostly single buds with bumps near the base of the petals that could grow into other flowers...or not.

[Tropicdude]

In the male vs. female identification, or male vs. female/hermaphrodite, how big do they have to be to tell the difference? Do all the male flowers show up as buds at the same time, or do they split latter? All my flowers look the same, mostly single buds with bumps near the base of the petals that could grow into other flowers...or not.

We are talking about 3 different flowers,  Female, Hermaphrodite, and Male, male trees are easy to identify, the flowers grow on small branching stems, and are much smaller.   Hermie trees flowers will have both male and female parts. in the same flower, not both types of flowers like a watermelon.   in other words, a hermie flower can pollinate itself.  Female trees will need a male or a hermie nearby.  frankly I would cut down any male trees and only keep hermies as pollinators for your female trees, this will prevent the seeds you plant from your fruit from coming up male.

[shaneatwell]

In the male vs. female identification, or male vs. female/hermaphrodite, how big do they have to be to tell the difference? Do all the male flowers show up as buds at the same time, or do they split latter? All my flowers look the same, mostly single buds with bumps near the base of the petals that could grow into other flowers...or not.

We are talking about 3 different flowers,  Female, Hermaphrodite, and Male, male trees are easy to identify, the flowers grow on small branching stems, and are much smaller.   Hermie trees flowers will have both male and female parts. in the same flower, not both types of flowers like a watermelon.   in other words, a hermie flower can pollinate itself.  Female trees will need a male or a hermie nearby.  frankly I would cut down any male trees and only keep hermies as pollinators for your female trees, this will prevent the seeds you plant from your fruit from coming up male.

Yes, I understood that. My question was more whether you could see these differences when the flower first buds or do you have to wait till it opens. In other words, is the branching on the male flowers immediately obvious as soon as buds appear, or do buds appear and then branches form.

I'm still trying to pin down the hermaphrodic flower issue on mexican papayas too. Now I'm not even sure where I read that mexicans don't produce hermaphrodic flowers.

[Tropicdude]

Yes male trees are very easy to ID, you can tell right away,  they do not look like flowers at first, but like a stem with multiple buds,  generally female and hermie flowers will be 1 per stem.  males will be multiple and grow further away from the tree.

[Mike T]

Male flowers are multiples on elongated and branched flower stalks. Hermies are small multiples in the leaf base with females having  just 1 or 2 flowers and a big fat flower with a short stalk.

[Dangermouse01]

Male flowers.


DM

[shaneatwell]

Thanks guys!

Im embarrassed that i repeated the 'mexican papayas are male or female' thing. Not sure where i got it but it might have been here. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tropical/msg0912240730264.html From what i understand now mexican varieties produce hermaphrodites just like the rest.

From the pictures above and this article im pretty sure i have 4 hermies.
http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/F_N-5.pdf

Liked this article too http://www.extento.hawaii.edu/kbase/crop/crops/i_papa.htm

[shaneatwell]

Funny that all my flowers on all 4 plants have 1 or 2 small flowers developing below the main one.





Pretty sure somethings going to open this weekend. I can see yellow dust at the tips of a couple.

[MangoFang]

Shane - my Mexican P's do the same thing - usually 3 flowers on each stalk with the FAT one becoming
the papaya.  Just a quick bit of Winter advice (if you don't already know this) - you do know about not keeping the base of the plant
too damp when it gets cold, yes?  In our climate it will rot the trunk and the thing will die.  Always safer to build a "moat"
to hold the water around a raised base when you plant in Cali.....

Good luck, amigo.....Gary

[shaneatwell]

Shane - my Mexican P's do the same thing - usually 3 flowers on each stalk with the FAT one becoming
the papaya.  Just a quick bit of Winter advice (if you don't already know this) - you do know about not keeping the base of the plant
too damp when it gets cold, yes?  In our climate it will rot the trunk and the thing will die.  Always safer to build a "moat"
to hold the water around a raised base when you plant in Cali.....

Good luck, amigo.....Gary

I havent decided what to do yet. Thinking of building some kind of tent around the base to keep the rain away. Not sure.