HAW 
AH AG 
UNITED 
RICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION 
HONOLULU, HAWAII 
Under the supervision of the 
STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
BULLETIN No. 61 
Washington, 
D. C. 
October, 
1930 
PAPAYA CULTURE IN HAWAII 
By W. T. Tope, Senior Horticulturist 
CONTENTS 
Page 
Introduction 1 
History and distribution 2 
Nomenclature and botanical relationships 2 
Description 3 
Flowers and fruit 6 
Variations 10 
Sex determination and irregularities IS 
Methods of propagation 22 
Seeds 23 
Cuttings 24 
Grafting 26 
Culture 29 
Natural requirements 29 
Planting 31 
Culture— Continued. Pa B6 
Irrigation 32 
Fertilizing 32 
Thecrop 33 
Time of maturity _. 33 
Harvesting, handling, and marketing.. ... 33 
Yields 34 
Enemies 34 
Composition of the fruit 35 
Uses 36 
As food 36 
Medicinal and other uses 37 
Papain 38 
Summary... .. 38 
Literature cited 39 
INTRODUCTION 
Papaya (Carica papaya) investigations have been conducted at 
the Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station since 1902. During 
the past eight years the investigations have been confined prin- 
cipally to a determination of the cultural requirements and methods 
of improving the species. Completion of the work has been greatly 
retarded because of the unsettled habits of the plant. Its tendency 
to exhibit marked variations in nature and growth of fruit was 
observed in other countries by Correa de Mello and Spruce (15, p. 
II) 1 in 1869, by Forbes (?', p. 313) in 1879, by Solms-Laubach (18) 
in 1889, by Iorns (10) in 1908, and by Kulkarni (12) in 1915. Wells 
in 1906 published a general article on the papaya in Hawaii, and 
Higgins and Holt (0) in 1914 reported the results of crossbreeding 
the papaya at the Hawaii station. 
This bulletin, which supplements and brings up to date the pre- 
vious bulletin of the Hawaii station by Higgins and Holt (,9), has 
been prepared to meet the demand for information on practical 
ways of growing the papaya in Hawaii and elsewhere. 
i Reference is made by italic numbers in parentheses to literature Cited, p. •">'■'. 
121054 30 —1 1 
