Are the seeds you have available from fruits you have tried and can describe, or are they seeds from elsewhere form fruits you have not tried?

Harry

Yes, all my papaya seeds are from fruits I have grown.
I allow them to ripen on the trees. My favourite is
the Red Lady. Short tree, big fruits and thick red flesh.
I like the taste. The rest are of average taste and can
be grown for variety.
The Sun Gold has big round fruit and orange flesh. Lovely
tree and fruit, but I do not like the taste.
I have two Malaysian varieties. One is Dwarf varieity
with big fruit. The other is smaller fruit but better taste.The Tainung and Carribean varities have smaller fruits
and average taste. The Thailand variety has unique leaves
and the skin is still green when it is ripe inside.

Durai

I love the general growing habit of papaya. The speed with which they fruit and their tropical growth habit really make them excellent subjects for a tropical fruit enthusiast. Nothing looks more tropical than a papaya tree full of fruit. Unfortunately, 99% of the fruits that I have tasted have been disappointing. Either the fruits are insipid with an occasional pang of very, very marginal sweetness or they have an unpleasant muskiness to them that I do not care for. When in Hawaii, 20 years ago, I ate some red fleshed papayas that were absolutley delicious. They were sweet and did not have any of the muskiness I find so objectionable.These Hawaiian fruits wereas good as any melon. Once I started growing fruit trees, I was on a quest to find that delicious red fleshed papaya. I planted lots of seeds. Some of these seeds were from people who swore their orange fleshed papayas were delicious and the best they have had. Others were actually from red fleshed fruits that were good, but not nearly as good as the ones I had in Hawaii. I brought many seedlings to fruit and I learned two things. First, growing these is mostly for the benefit of fruit flies, that lay their eggs in the young fruits and then surprise you with a bunch of writhing maggots upon slicing into the mature fruit. Secondly, the red fruit's seeds did not produce red fruit in their seedlings....at least not the ones and either the people that were touting their oranged flesh fruits as being delicious were seriously taste challenged or the seedlings from those trees were not like their parents. So....that leads me to the question....with regard to your Red Lady papaya.....where did you get the original tree/seeds. What has your experience been with seedling similarity to the parent? Do you have the fruit fly issue where you grow and how are you dealing with it? Thanks.

Harry

Ah, the mythical melon tasting papaya... I tasted one such papaya myself a few years ago and I have been in search of one just like it ever since. I even grew about 10 seeds from the papaya. They all came out male!

You are abosolutely right, Harry. Most of the varieties I have grown have mariginal sweetness or the unpleasant muskiness. You just grow them for their beauty.
I will take exception on my Red Lady. The seeds came from Florida. I received two packets both named Red Lady. One was a commercial packet. It produced smaller fruits. The
leaves and the skin of the papaya have reddish traces. But the fruit has ordinary taste. The other packet resulted in short sturdy trees with huge (each about 3lbs) fruits. The flesh is red and the taste is the best so far for me. The flesh is exceptionally thick too. Probably it is a cross.
Papayas are generally not true to seeds, since they cross easily. I planted about 10 seedlings. Four were males.
Of the remaining six, only three produced fruits that are of the description above. I would recomend that you try my Red Lady. I enjoyed eating one just yesterday.
Yes, fruitfly is the major problem. I cover the fruits with plastic sheets. Once the bottom leaves fall, I cover the fruits.
Happy gardening.

Durai

I'd like to have some papaya seed from you, may be red lady and Thai papaya. We, Thai do eat papaya when green as well as when ripe. I don't really have a lot of good seed just some random seed from Thailand ( not fruit tree). I also do have some crown of thorn cuttings (big red flower and also pink) if you are interested.

Sure, James-hoon, I will gladly send your the Papaya seeds.
Look at my Have List and see if your need any other seeds.
You can send me any of your seeds. I will try growing them
in my country.
Kindly Email your Postal Address to me.

Durai

I don't think you can mail any seed to US. I can mail my seeds to you if you still want them and I think you can grow them there, but don't worry about mailing any seed to me.

Hi durai,
I've read that the red lady papaya's are of self-pollinating type. Is yours the same. If yes, I would love to share some seeds. I can trade with bitter melon(similar to the ones in Indian stores) and tulsi seeds. Pls let me know.

Thnx,

Vidyaa

Have any of you ever tasted a T.R. Hovey papaya? I have one that is loaded with buds. One of the buds has already opened up into a bloom and looks like a small papaya on the inside of it. If it fruits this will be the first tropical fruit that I have grew.

Red Lady, is an F1 Hybrid, so I do not believe it will come true through seed.

It is a very good variety, Ring Spot tolerant, High brix, and very productive. a friend has a few acres of these planted.

Sun Gold is another similar to Red Lady, I have about 6 Sun Gold planted and 30 or so Red Maradol. only a couple months old now.

If you save seed, best to use non hybrid varieties, and take the seeds from a fruit that is elongated in shape, instead of the roundish ones, the Elongated fruit come from hermaphrodite trees, round fruit come from female trees. you will have a better chance of getting hermaphrodite plants from those.

As for taste, I love Papaya, in a Milkshake, I do not eat it plain.

Recipe:
remove the fruit part from very ripe papaya, and cut into chunks.
place chunks in freezer bag, place in freezer.

In blender put:
2 cups of milk.
4 Tablespoons of sugar ( this may vary depending on your taste )
1 Tablespoon of vanilla
and toss in the frozen papaya chunks. Blend until you have a nice thick smoothie.

You will probably never have papaya any other way again.
there is no musky smell this way, and the great flavor really comes out. you can also substitute water for milk, if you don't do dairy.

One other way to have papaya, place long strips in a food dehydrator, they taste like candy in that form.

I noticed in many videos on YouTube, that people in the states, think a papaya is ripe when its just a bit yellow, you need to let them ripen until you think they are about to rot. when they are all yellow, no green at all that's when they are ready. they can be picked early though, when just some yellowing starts, then just keep iton the counter till fully ripe.

Here is a link to a video I made a while back, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n1V_Eh0Ir0

Here is a link that might be useful: Shake

I have Cherimoya seeds for trade if you like

rev-durai, are you still here? I'm looking for Red Lady seeds and I have Mexican Maradol papaya seeds to trade.

John

Hi John,

Sorry I do not have Red Lady seeds. They got cross-pollinated and therefore I stopped collecting seeds.

Sorry to hear that...I've been looking around for Red Lady seeds but the ones I've seen were from F1 hybrids, and I'm not sure they would be true Red Lady. Either that or people on eBay who want $5 for 5 seeds, . Where did you get your original ones?