Papaya roots outside of the soil

[eez0]

A few weeks ago, I started to notice how this papaya was leaning to one side. Days later, I also noticed how it was very unstable, and a few days later, I started to see its roots.

It's like if the soil was spitting it out. I tried to add more soil but to no avail.





Any ideas about how to approach this? The other papaya in the background is very healthy.

[pineislander]

It looks very healthy well grown seedling. They are very fast growing. It would have been better to break up the soil more around the planting hole when you planted it. I think the base of the plant is swelling fast which is pushing upwards. You can mound around the base they are not like hardwood trees and can be hilled up like corn and will even form adventitious roots. I sometimes plant them deeper than the soil level when in a pot. If it is a good hybrid variety the fruit load can easily topple or break off the plant, they are hollow soft fleshed stems. So, it's important to not let them start leaning. If the lean persists I'd suggest using two strong branches with forks to prop it and form a tripod shape since the leaning gets progressively worse as fruit swells up. Use some wide nylon strapping to attach sticks to trunk. Even then, the whole top can break off because they can carry over 50 kg fruit.

[eez0]

at least, this is a small variety (Honey). In theory, it stays at 2m (~7ft) tall for about 4-5 years, and then suddenly has a growth spurt to 3-4m.

The nursery told me that the most common is that people cut them off by the fourth year.