Papaya cultivars of the world

Abstract

Although the family Caricaceae has about 48 species, only Carica papaya produces edible fruits. A large number of cultivars are grown in different papaya-producing countries. The number of cultivars is quite large because of out-crossing in papaya, and these cannot be called cultivars. In India, more than 30 cultivars and hybrids are grown in different states, of which ‘Coorg Honey Dew’, ‘Washington’, ‘Ranchi’, ‘Taiwan’ hybrids, ‘Solo’, CO cultivars (‘CO1’, ‘CO2’, ‘CO3’, ‘CO4’, ‘CO5’, ‘CO6’), ‘Pusa Majesty’ and ‘Pusa Delicious’ are popular. Solo cultivars ‘Kapoho’, ‘Sunrise’, ‘Sunset’ and ‘Waimanalo’ are grown in Hawaii, USA. In the Philippines, ‘Cavity Special’, ‘Sunrise Solo’, ‘Waimanalo’ and ‘Sinta’ (hybrid) are the cultivars. The main cultivar of Taiwan is ‘Tainung 2’, which occupies more than 90% of papaya in Taiwan. There are a few other cultivars, including ‘Sunrise’ (5%), ‘Red Lady’ (4%) and newly released cultivar ‘Tainung 10-OrangeBaby’ (1%). In Vietnam, the most popular cultivar is ‘Dai Loan Tim’, the main purple Taiwan cultivar. The other cultivar grown is ‘Sieu Lun Cao San’, ‘Tainung 01’ occupies 99% of Formosa papaya and 1.0% of Bela Vista in Brazil. Among the Solo group of papaya, ‘Sunrise Solo BS’ is grown for the internal market and ‘Golden THB’ for the export market in Brazil. Australian papaya growers mainly grow red papaya, ‘RB1’, ‘RB2’, and ‘Skybury’, as commercial cultivars, and ‘IB’ and ‘Hybrid 13’ for yellow-fleshed papaya. ‘Khaek Dam’, ‘Khaek Nuan’ and ‘Dampit’ are popular in Indonesia. Mexican cultivars are ‘Mexican Red’, ‘Caribbean Red’, ‘Maradol’, ‘Royal’, ‘Star Papayas’, ‘Singapore Pink’, ‘Higgins’ and some genetically modified cultivars. The mayor cultivars of Malaysia are ‘Batu Arang’, ‘Sitiawan’ and ‘Subang 6’. Other cultivars developed and used as dessert fruit for export are ‘Eksotica’, ‘Eksotica II’ and ‘Sekaki’. In South Africa, ‘Hortus Gold’, ‘Honey Gold’ and ‘Kaapmuiden’ are the major cultivars grown. Thailand growers prefer hermaphrodite red-fleshed cultivars ‘Sai-nampueng’, ‘Khaek Dam’ and ‘Kheg Nuan’. In greenhouse cultivation at Okinawa, Japan, cultivars including ‘Solo’, ‘BH-65’, ‘Tainung 1’, ‘Tainung 2’, ‘Tainung 5’, ‘Maradol’, and ‘Wonder Flare’ are cultivated. This paper will discuss the characters of papaya cultivars growing in different countries of the world.