These are my Red Lady papaya seedlings, about 10 days old. Since I’m in a non-tropical zone, I’m growing them indoors under lights through winter, planning to transplant them outdoors in mid-March once temps warm up. They should be at least 2ft tall by then. I plan to transplant about 4 on the ground and 5 of them in 30 gallon containers.
Setup:
Lighting — 100W (6000K, 12,000 lumens) + 50W (6000K, 6,500 lumens) floodlights = ~150W total. 15 hours on, 9 hours off. These are floodlights. Temperature steady at 77°F.
Small fan for air circulation.
Small Humidifier in the room
I made a few adjustments early on — the lights were initially too close (3”), which caused slight yellowing on the first true leaves. Now they’re 10 inches above the canopy, and the new growth looks better?
How do they look so far? I’d love to hear from anyone who’s started papayas from seed indoors or overwintered young trees successfully — any tips on light distance, humidity, or soil management would be awesome. Please be kind.
Thanks for your reply! These are F1 Red lady Papaya seeds, bred for less chances of male plants and higher chances of hermaphrodites and females and bred for more uniformity. Purchased from a reputable source of F1 hybrid seeds. Shouldn’t gender be less of a mess this way rather than grabbing a papaya fruit from market?
Im actually going to experiment with air layering as well. If it’s successful, I’ll keep some papayas this way in containers to have for a couple years.
Hey Melon sorry I just now noticing your reply. These two I got are males but I’m not sure if it’s worth even keeping one over the winter… I’ve heard you can stress it to change its gender via puncturing the base of the trunk with a nail, but these plants grow so quick that I may as well start over. What do you think? I suppose it would be a neat challenge for me to practice on overwintering plants in general.
I grew them both from seed since Late April. The picture is from October 13th. Not too shabby for 6 months of growth!
This is a picture of them now after their haircut. Picture was taken 1-2 days ago. The cultivar is apparently called TR Hovey. Them being marketed as “self fertile” but after growing 4 males from their 10 seed pack, I had a bone to pick with the seller.
Unless it’s from a reputable company, i never trust seed packs for trees personally.
Yes I’ve heard that you can stress them into changing genders I’ve seen people just take a knife to them and wait to see if they change. If not then they hit it a few more times after a couple of months. Like, don’t lob the top off but just hit the sides with a knife a few times. Personally, i never got there yet. I bought my plants as not true papayas but babaco papayas.
Touché on that, friend. Apparently the whole seed game is janked up right now who knows what we are really getting. My F1 seeds I sourced are from Alohaseeds, so we will see how they turn out.
I figured if I overwinter one, I’ll knock some sense into it in hopes it gets convinced it’s the opposite gender.
Very interested in that babaco papaya you mentioned. Mind chiming in with more info?
They grow super fast in good soil and Babaco fruits set parthenocarpically if i recall correctly. So you don’t gotta worry about having one or the other gender
It gets covered with only a huge tarp (no supplemental heat) for our rare hard freezes. It survived 14 F in Dec. 2022, 17 F in Jan. 2024, and 20 F last January:
To get ripe fruit as an annual, you have to start papaya seeds indoors in fall and transplant asap in spring. If you have flowers by June, you should have ripe fruit by November. Fruit that sets after July may not ripen before hard freezes. BTW, excellent soil drainage is essential for overwintering papaya in-ground. Cold-wet soil is a papaya killer for sure.
I should add that I have dozens of volunteer papaya plants scattered around our orchard. Pretty much everywhere I spread my home-made compost, papaya plants spring up. Unprotected, they will generally freeze back to nearly ground level, but those that come back the next year often grow quickly and will bloom by early summer. With some minimal freeze protection, they always reward us with fruit by late fall (sometimes 50-100 pounds per plant). Branches that regrow nearly vertically usually bear both “female” and “male” flowers, branches that grow more parallel to the ground are typically “male” only, on the same plant! I also find that fruiting trunks will switch to producing only “male” flowers in hot dry summer conditions, and switch back to producing more “female” flowers and fruit in fall. Wacky!
Yes, store-bought papayas are picked green and sometimes gassed with ethylene on route to market. A very poor substitute for plant-ripened fruit which explodes with flavor and sweetness. Over the past 30 years I have grown (or killed) 50-60 or more types of tropical and semitropical fruits here near Houston, and none can come close to Mexican papaya for productivity (seed to basket-fulls of fruit in a little over a year). Local gardeners sometimes tell me they don’t like the taste of papaya, and I tell them “learn to like it.” I think their perception it because they have only ever tasted mediocre store-bought fruits.
Big (2-5+ pound) large oblong orange ones are Mexican. Walmart and many local (Houston) grocery stores stock them. Hawaiian papayas are much smaller (about 1 pound), nearly round, and usually yellow skinned. I rarely see the fruit for sale here. The plants are usually self-fertile (hence the variety name “Solo”) and most of the commercially-grown ones are now GMO varieties. I have never successfully fruited Hawaiian plants, but Mexican are very forgiving (they are slightly more cold hardy) and can be quite productive. I have never actually bought a papaya plant or seeds, but have enjoyed eating the fruit most years from home-grown plants that originated from a store-bought fruit originally, and now simply the many volunteers in my orchard. There are some diminutive Mexican varieties available by mail order that supposedly fruit at 3-4’ height, but I have never sought them out.
I’ve seen people just take a knife to them and wait to see if they change. If not then they hit it a few more times after a couple of months. Like, don’t lob the top off but just hit the sides with a knife a few times. Personally, i never got there yet. I bought my plants as not true papayas but babaco papayas.
