HURRICANE OMAR WIND TOLERANT PAPAYA

During the mid and late 1990s the US Virgin Islands experienced frequent hurricanes which destroyed most of the papaya crops.
From this experience, papaya breeding focused on developing short and compact lines with fruit set within 1 m of the soil.
A papaya plot was established in a double-row system, 2 m between plants in a row, 1 m between rows and 3 m between sets of double rows.
Papaya trees, 7 months after transplanting, latent with fruit and in the first month of harvest, were subjected to hurricane Omar force winds in October 2008. Papaya varieties over 2 m in height ‘Tainung 1’, ‘Tainung 5’, ‘Known-You 1’ and Kapoho had 10-20% broken stem and 70-80% were blown down.
Three compact papaya lines, 1-1.5 m tall, had no broken stems and only up to 15% of the plants blown over.
These results indicate that short productive trees, with a lower center of gravity, were able to tolerate hurricane force.

II International Symposium on Papaya

T.W. Zimmerman

cyclone, typhoon, dwarf papaya, compact papaya, Carica papaya

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2010.851.23