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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
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Plant · P-035
Papaya
Carica papaya
Papaya grows more like a giant herb than a tree: a single hollow, non-woody stem topped with huge palm-shaped leaves and clusters of fruit at the crown. It can bear fruit within six months and keeps producing year-round, but yields peak in the second and third year and the whole plant is usually finished and replaced within four years. A hard freeze kills it outright, since there is no root or stump left behind to resprout from, so where winters bring frost it is often grown instead as a one-season annual. The milky latex of the unripe fruit is the source of papain, a meat-tenderizing enzyme also used on wounds, in beer-clarifying and in old soap recipes.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 10–12
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Moist · Well-Drained
Vertical layer
Sub-Canopy- Soil pH
- 5.5–7
- Plant type
- Perennial
- Mature height
- 6–20 ft
- Mature spread
- 3–15 ft
- Plant spacing
- 6–8 ft
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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