Notice I did not add a “tree” behind the papaya in the title?
There was some debate during the sharing of this post in our group (SG Farming in Apartments) whether a papaya plant is a tree, herb, or both! 🙂
What is interesting about the papaya plant is that it has three sexes: Female (fruit-bearing), Male (non-fruit bearing), and bisexual (fruit-bearing and has both male and female flowers on the same plant)!
ABOUT PAPAYA SEEDS
The tips to germinate a fruit-bearing papaya plant starts from choosing the right seeds.
Firstly, black color, as opposed to lighter shade seeds, increased the chance of a fruit-bearing plant.
This information came from member Galih Galih in our group.
Another resource ( agriculture90 ) recommended to soak black seeds in lukewarm water overnight and then chose the ones that sink to the bottom.
In addition, seeds from the tip to the middle of the fruit’s cavity is better for germination than from the base of the fruit.
From my own experience, removing the outer skin covering the seeds made germination faster.
DWARFING METHODS
AIR LAYERING EXPERIMENT (MOHD. NOOR, 2019)
The experiment was shared by Singapore based gardener, Mohd. Noor, who wanted to grow and harvest papayas on a short plant.
This was his amazing result after 2 years of trial and errors – a papaya plant that could be grown in containers and have fruits beneath his shoulder’s height.
Step 1 – Chose a young female plant (about 6 months old) that already showed fruits. This is to make sure time and effort were not wasted on a male plant.
Step 2 – Make an upward slit on the trunk and supported the slit with small wood pieces (ice cream sticks) so that they will not “glue” back to the trunk like this.
TIP – SLIT IS NOT CUT THROUGH
Step 3 – Cover the slit with cocopeat and soil mixes that retain moisture well, cling wrap around the slit, add moisture, and secured well.
Roots typically showed in 2 months.
Step 4 – Once there is roots mass, separate the air layered plant from the main trunk and replant in containers.
The above fruiting plant is from the air layered cutting.
It can be grown in grow bag or re-potted to deep tree/bush size pot as needed.
What happened to MOTHER PLANT after the air-layered top was separated?
The bare top-off part will regrow new leaves and start its own journey towards fruiting.
Instead of one tall plant, it is possible as shown by Mohd. Noor’s experiments to propagate and grow dwarf papaya plants this way.
All the plants above started from seeds, and air layered after the first fruits showed.
Only female plants were used for air layering.
We found a video with English subtitles from our region.
Mr. MaderaRoja de la Secoya (or MAI) – ROOTS TRIMMING (2016)
Another dwarfing papaya method was shared by Mr. MaderaRoja de la Secoya (or MAI), on how to keep papaya plant low for easier harvest and allowed it to be grown in pots.
According to MAI (his shortened Thai name), this was not his original idea.
He saw this post from another contributor and tried them for his fruit trees (orange and lime) and they worked!
The plants are able to thrive in pots, did not grow to full size but the fruits are of normal sizes.
At the maximum height, papaya roots that had been pruned will grow to 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) only.
According to Mai, it would take a very long time for dwarf papaya to reach this height and they would likely die of old age thereafter.
Mai also shared that a squirt of lime and a dash of pepper on ripe papaya is not only delicious but also a settled queasy stomach! 🙂
So how did this method work?
STEP 1 – Chose a 2 weeks old seedling
Step 2 – Chose 4 weeks old papaya seedling with good roots mass, remove the soil gently from roots.
Mai has shared that in his region (Chiang Mai, Thailand) only bisexual papayas are available, so this is what the main root looks like.
One main taproot with many root hairs along the whole main root.
MAI advised saving as many roots hairs as possible when cutting the main root.
From my reading ( arlene1027 and contributions from gardeners in South East Asia) on this plant, it seems that we can confirm whether the mature plant will produce male or female flowers based on their roots.
Since only female or bisexual plants produce fruits, it is important to know how to tell the difference early.
Step 3 – Cut tip of the main taproot
The female root is shorter, developed in a bunch, and has more than 1 main root.
After the papaya’s taproot has been trimmed, this seedling should be planted in the biggest pot possible so that it can grow to its mature height without further transplanting.
His experience has been that the papaya plant does not take to transplanting easily.
They will die if their roots are disturbed when they are a few months old.
TIP – TRIM ROOTS EARLY ( 3 – 4 weeks old)
To avoid transplanting when his papaya plant outgrew a pot, MAI checked at the bottom of the pot and trimmed off roots that are extending out of it.
Regarding fertilizer, Mai’s experience had been that papaya can thrive with no fertilizer, “in plain old dirt”.
DISCLAIMER ADVISORY
Local SG gardener, Ms. Annie Lim, shared that her seedlings did not survive this root pruning on February 05, 2017.
Perhaps not all seeds are suitable for this method.
Do try on one first and observed before proceeding with the next seedling.
OLDER PAPAYA PLANTS DWARFING METHODS
To keep few months old papayas (with normal un-pruned roots) from growing too tall, the “topping off” method is quite common.
This is a method where the top of the papaya plant is trimmed off and a lattice is built over the plant.
MAI said the plant will regrow in a lateral pattern instead of reaching for the skies!
The fruits will also hang in a lateral way making for easier harvest.
TAIWAN BENDING PAPAYA METHOD
Is there no hope for mature papaya plants?
Gardeners who grew papayas often lament about controlling mealybugs infestation.
What made this problem acute for mature papayas is its height.
According to Suan-Loke Tan (Urban Farmers Singapore group), when papaya plants grew too tall (3 meters and taller), they become more difficult to manage pests.
A lot of gardeners would stop maintaining the plants and they will decline.
Eventually, these plants would be chopped down and discarded.
A method to shorten the height of mature papaya plants was introduced in a YOUTUBE video from Taiwan.
According to this video (in Mandarin and Chinese dialect), papaya plants can be shortened by cutting three vertical slits on the “trunk” of the papaya, so that it can be stretched to bent over.
Unlike other tree-like plants, papayas’ inner cores are like bamboos with a hollow center.
Cutting deep slits on the plants’ exteriors will not kill it.
In fact, growing them horizontally, will slow down its growth and doubled its normal productive lifespan from 3 to 7 years.
Water and nutrients are more effectively distributed to the top of the tree in a lateral way than vertical.
Fruits grown this way are sweeter and tastier too.
Last but not least, pest control at waist height is much easier and effective!
One local brave gardener, Mr. CheongWeei Gan from UrbanFarmers Singapore, decided to test this out on 5 of his own plants.
Slits were cut on the “trunk” of this papaya so that it can be bent.
A support was used to hold up the plant in its new position.
Some of the leaves were trimmed off as well.
This papaya had already produced fruits when it was bent.
As seen in this picture, the leaves are facing downwards.
Some gardeners in Singapore expressed concern that this plant may not recover.
Two weeks later, the plant has recovered.
The leaves are no longer facing down and have moved upwards towards the sun.
It was observed that the slits made on the trunk of this plant were dry and healed in 5 days
Mr. CheongWeei Gan had these observations based on his experiments to share –
- Ideal height to apply this method is 5 to 8 feet. If the tree is too short, the shortening effect is not optimum. Too tall or too old, the papaya plant had become too woody and its harder to bent and likely caused the vertical strips to break or tear. Nutrients and water distribution will be disrupted and the plants would take a longer time to recover.
- Thin trunk needs 3 – 4 vertical strips while thicker trunk 5 – 6 strips for better-bent effect. He will be experimenting whether different bent positions affect shortening effect and would try to find the best-bent position to optimize this shortening.
- Papaya plants do not thrive in waterlogged soil. Most plants die because of root rot than any other reason.
- Plants with unhealthy roots have few leaves and the bottom-most leaf is only 1 to 2 inches from the tip of the top leaves. In healthy plants, the lowest leaf is more than a foot from the “growing tip”. This is one of the way he gauge whether his papaya plant is in good health or not! 🙂
On this method of shortening, Mr. CheongWeei Gan felt that the real test will be whether the new fruits after the current harvest would be as claimed, that they taste better and sweeter being grown on a lateral trunk than on a vertical one. 🙂
SUMMARY of Papaya Plant Growing Information ( Gardening Know How ) –
- Full SUN
- Water frequently for best fruits production and do consider mulching to retain moisture
- Best in growing zone 9 – 10
- These plants can produce either female , male or bisexual flowers. Only female and bisexual flowers produce fruits. Supermarkets’ fruits seeds tend to be produce bisexual flowers (both male and female flowers on the same plant).
- At maturity and grounded, the plant can reached 30 feet
Very informative.
can this papaya dwarfing method be used in any climate-tropical?
what size of pot should i use?
how long those it take from seed to fruits?
Hi,
For this question, I will have to ask the gardeners who grow papayas! 🙂 Their names are mentioned in the post, and they could be found in our Facebook (Singapore) gardening groups. Perhaps you like to contact them there?
Thanks for such good info! I want to clarify on the bisexual and male roots. Both look almost the same, with one main tap root. What is the main difference of the bisexual and male roots? Appreciate your help!
Main tap roots with more hairy roots along the sides are bi.
We just had a 30′ papaya which was in the neighbors yard hanging over our property and had it cut down to 6′ from ground. How can we keep it from growing and producing new growth? thank you
We planted a papaya seedling, and it didn’t bear fruit for over two years! We assumed that it was male, but all of a sudden, fruit appeared. For the past year there have been 5-10 fruits in progress at all times. I’ll have to do something soon, though, because the current crop is as high as I can reach with my current ladder. 🙂
My name is Joshua from calabar cross river state Nigeria am into papaya farming, my major challenge has been most of my papaya turning into male during fruiting this has kept me worried. I collect seeds from local vendors bases on the kind of variety they sale sometimes the seeds will not germinate so I start over again by collecting so what can be done. Which are the effective ways of nursing papaya seedlings.?
Just purchase a Papaya fruit, take the seed and grow the seed easily. Plant at least tree seed in one hole and you can kill the male one when they start fruiting.
This is the most informative article on keeping papayas small and manageable, and with real examples by your friends – thank you so much for sharing ! I am attempting the root trimming method and learned so much from reading through all of the tips here. Thanks again
Can I have images of papya dwarf growing in pots. Different sizes of pots to get a plant approximately 6ft tall.
This post was written in 2016, thus I long lost touch with gardeners in this post. Apologies.