Screening Lowers Papaya Replanting Costs

WASHINGTON - Jan 2/04 - SNS -- Papaya orchards need to be consistently replanted to maintain yields, but traditional methods are costly because large numbers of seedlings need to be culled.

Researchers with the USDA's Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Hawaii believe they have solved the problem by developing a pre-screening method so that only plants which will produce perfect flowers are sown.

Plant physiologist Maureen M.M. Fitch of the ARS U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center in Aiea, Hawaii, says in an article published in the January 2004 issue of Agricultural Research magazine that yields typically taper off once trees reach 3 years of age. By then, the trees have usually grown so tall that their uppermost fruit may be beyond the reach of the picking poles that workers use to harvest the crop.

The article by the USDA's Marcia Wood continues: This means that most papaya orchards have to be replanted every 3 to 4 years. In addition, papaya trees lack an anchoring taproot, so whole orchards are vulnerable to being flattened by the 30- to 40-mile-an-hour winds that blow in from the Pacific. All this can add to the cost of producing papayas.

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