Growing Papaya

[billd766]

Does anybody grow Papaya for papaya pok pok?

I have been following Maizefarmers Makua thread and spent some time chasing up the basic bits for irrigation and when I spoke to my wife about it she said;

If we grow too many where will will sell them.

We need better water supplies.

I have no answer to the first question but I can deal with the second.

Then she said that she was thinking of growing papaya for papaya pok pok.

We have about 10 rai available of sloping therefore well drained land though there is rock about 1/2 metre down and a lot of it is planted with man (tapioca) which will be harvested as usual so that part of the land will be free and cleared.

We also have another 10 rai about 3 km down the road also planted with man but this has a klong behind it which we can use for irrigation.

Has anyone ever grown papaya commercially?

[Maizefarmer]

BILLD766

Let me add something to this for you - in favour of both crops:

1) Makua you will have no problems off loading up to 4 rai daily - or between 40 - 80kg. They will

go on the local market quite easily in all but the smallest of villages.

2) Anything above that and you will need to have a "wholesale outlet" for lack of a better word.

That can be resolved by one of 2 ways: firstly, news travels fast and some where around you

there will be a bulk dealer, who buys product in bulk and retails it on the large town or city

markets. I am offloading around 1 ton per week from 20 rai onto the Loei town market by its self.

If you are in an area that has a town of any size - and can irrigate you are safe - especially

come the dry season, as most of the small Makua farmers do not have irrigation. So don't worry.

If you go through a patch in which the prices are real low, then presevre the plant buy picking

the flowers off before they turn to fruit. When the price goes back up the plant will produce all

the much better.

3) In any case you should not be starting out with more than 1rai to "learn" from or with.

That will give you more than sufficient safety margin while at the same time give you a good

feel for what the local market will absorb - and then from that build up slowly in 1 rai steps till the

market is "filled".

Exactly the same should apply for Papaya - the differance been that you will not be getting a daily harvest, but a harvesting/picking that is grouped around periods of time the Papaya will produce fruit.

Lastly - there is no reason why you cannot "inter - crop" using papaya i.e. grow both Papaya and Makua on the same plot of land. The Papaya tree takes up a very small footprint of no more than about 30cm square - it can easily be planted between every 3rd or 4th Makua plant and the row spacings I have suggested for the Makua, will be perfect row spacings for Papaya - the Papaya will grow straight up and above the Makua - they will nto interfer with each other.

Why not start off with 1 or 2 rai of Makua with Papaya "inter-cropped". The water and fertiliser requirements for both are the same so irrigating both at the same time is possible.

Tim

Edited October 23, 2006 by Maizefarmer

[billd766]

Hi Maizefarmer

Thanks for the information and I will explain it to my wife.

We have 1 rai free at the back of the house which we can use as a "test bed" for both crops and I have found a place in the next village that can supply most of the things we need except for the button dropper. The do sell an item which plugs into the pvc pipe and when it is screwed down tight no water comes out and it can be adjusted to pass the water as a sort of very low pressure fountain rather than a drip feed. It was 3 baht and I will try it out later today and photograph it to paste on the thread.

He also showed me a tool for making the holes in the pvc pipe.

I have an electric pump and I am probably going to use 1 inch blue pipe as that is the size of the inlet and outlet pipes. It is rated at a max 90 litres a minute or 5400 litres an hour and it should be OK as there is only a little slope to pump up.

Where can I get commercial quantities of Makua and Papaya seeds?

I will be quiet on this thread for a while as I need to set the operation up which will take some time.

Cheers

Bill

[Maizefarmer]

Bill - I cant help you with any quantities of Papaya seed, but I canm help you with Makua seed (Tiger variety) and with drippers.

The pump you have sounds fine for the job.

Tim

[billd766]

Bill - I cant help you with any quantities of Papaya seed, but I canm help you with Makua seed (Tiger variety) and with drippers.

The pump you have sounds fine for the job.

Tim

Hi Tim

Thanks for that information. I will take a couple of photos of this water thing and then just try it on the hose pipe to see what happens.

[billd766]

Bill - I cant help you with any quantities of Papaya seed, but I canm help you with Makua seed (Tiger variety) and with drippers.

The pump you have sounds fine for the job.

Tim

Hi Tim

Thanks for that information. I will take a couple of photos of this water thing and then just try it on the hose pipe to see what happens.

I was in the village and for 10 baht I bought a packet of Chua Yong Seng round eggplant seeds.

Also when I eat cantaloupe melons I just throw the seeds at the edge of the veg patch and it looks as though I have some of them coming along as well.

[Maizefarmer]

Bill - I cant help you with any quantities of Papaya seed, but I canm help you with Makua seed (Tiger variety) and with drippers.

The pump you have sounds fine for the job.

Tim

Hi Tim

Thanks for that information. I will take a couple of photos of this water thing and then just try it on the hose pipe to see what happens.

I was in the village and for 10 baht I bought a packet of Chua Yong Seng round eggplant seeds.

Also when I eat cantaloupe melons I just throw the seeds at the edge of the veg patch and it looks as though I have some of them coming along as well.

Wrap some newspaper around the cantoloupes when they start grwoing - its stops the bugs eating holes into them.

Tim

[JungleBiker]

Where can I get commercial quantities of Makua and Papaya seeds?

Hi Bill,

I am also interested to grow papaya. One source of seeds in commercial quantities is Known You seeds in Chiang Mai - they have distributors in most main towns but the distributors may only stock garden sized packets but I am sure they can order commercial quantities for you. I am not sure which of their varieties is good for green papaya; they have several that are good for ripe eating. I think they also supply tissue cultured plants which are recommended for higher yields. Let me know if you have a problem contacting KNown You and I will dig out a number (I am in Laos now and the number is in Thailand).

You obviously already know that papaya do not like wet feet as you mentioned well drained sloping land. One technique you might consider is to make raised beds to give you better soil depth and drainage and at the same time you can add some materials to improve soil fertility (manure, baggasse, etc).

Attached is a picture from Nakhon Panom. The variety is Red Lady from Known You. In my opinion the plants would be better if the weeds were removed and a mulch (e.g. of rice straw, rice hulls) was applied to the soil surface. They also look like they could do with more feeding.

[JungleBiker]

Where can I get commercial quantities of Makua and Papaya seeds?

Hi Bill,

I am also interested to grow papaya. One source of seeds in commercial quantities is Known You seeds in Chiang Mai - they have distributors in most main towns but the distributors may only stock garden sized packets but I am sure they can order commercial quantities for you. I am not sure which of their varieties is good for green papaya; they have several that are good for ripe eating. I think they also supply tissue cultured plants which are recommended for higher yields. Let me know if you have a problem contacting KNown You and I will dig out a number (I am in Laos now and the number is in Thailand).

You obviously already know that papaya do not like wet feet as you mentioned well drained sloping land. One technique you might consider is to make raised beds to give you better soil depth and drainage and at the same time you can add some materials to improve soil fertility (manure, baggasse, etc).

Attached is a picture from Nakhon Panom. The variety is Red Lady from Known You. In my opinion the plants would be better if the weeds were removed and a mulch (e.g. of rice straw, rice hulls) was applied to the soil surface. They also look like they could do with more feeding.