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Florida Gardening

tasteless papayas

12 years ago

Good morning. I have a dwarf red lady papaya and was so excited that it was bearing so much fruit but now that I am cutting them open I end up carrying them to the composter because they have no flavor! I there anything I need or needed to do for it to produce fruit that has more flavor???

Thank you!

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Comments (5)

slopfrog
12 years ago
Not sure what to do, but I really want to know the answer to this also. Every papaya I've ever had from the store was terrible tasting. I was just gifted two sunrise solo seedlings (I hope they'll be bisexuals!) and need to know the same thing!
saldut
12 years ago
Last Fall my papaya were sweet and delish, then we had that cold weather and freezes and the tops of my plants froze down... now the fruit that is managing to set and get ripe is terrible, my guess is the cold somehow did something to the plant to ruin the taste.... I have more plants coming but will be awhile before they are big enough to fruit and I hope these will be better... when they make hybrids they breed out all the good taste.. sally
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pawsnplants
12 years ago
Are you letting the papaya get completely ripe? They have to be just about to the point where you think they should go to the compost pile before they have the best flavor.
izharhaq
12 years ago
One of my friend who owned a commercial Papaya farm told me to use Potassium fertilizers (he used Potassium Nitrate) when your papayas are or have become tasteless... the rate can be between 250 gm to half kg tilled near each plant...

I have not used this but mentioned it here as it might help...
keiki
12 years ago
Try squeezing a fresh lime over the papayas. Lime tends to bring out the flavor in some other fruits like dragon fruit.

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