agriculture business : crops, aquaculture, livestock, poultry, entrepreneurs, and agrithing…
UPLB’s Dr. Domingo Angeles, a papaya expert, talks about the various potentials of this famed tropical fruit.
Not all fruits are created equal. Some are sweet and some are not. There is at least one so well liked that was important enough to have songs composed in its honor.
But what is this fruit which has one traditional song that cites it, with yet another one - a modern piece at that - also bearing its name?
GROWING SEEDLINGS FOR SALE
One money-making project that is starting to become popular is growing papaya seedlings for sale. If one is_proficient in production as well as in marketing the seedlings, there is big money to be made. There’s a lady employee from Antipolo City who has been producing Sinta and Red Lady papaya seedlings as a sideline. She sells her production to a nursery of a friend where there are many customers. It is just a small operation but she makes a net of about P10 per seedling that she delivers to her outlet.
The big-time seedling producer of papaya seedlings, of course, is Desiree Duran of Basuit, San Ildefonso, Bulacan. She has been producing seedlings of Sinta papaya since 2003. She estimates that she had supplied the planting materials to about 50 hectares out of the 100 hectares planted to papaya in 2006 in San Ildefonso.
Desiree has mastered the production of papaya seedlings (as well as vegetable hybrids). The papaya seeds are germinated in seedling trays and when they have developed a few leaves, they are transferred to a 2.5-inch-diameter black plastic bag so they can be hardened. Forty-five days from sowing the seeds, the seedlings are ready for sale. In 2007, a lot of papaya growers, not only from Bulacan but also from Pampanga had ordered papaya seedlings from her that could have easily planted 100 hectares.
As more and more enthusiasts are getting interested in planting Red Lady Papaya, which is very much in demand as ripe table papaya, there are also some seedling growers who are trying to make a fast buck from this papaya variety. Beware of them because they pass seedlings grown from the seeds of the hybrid plants as F1 or first filial generation seedlings.
Sometime in 2006, we tried planting six Red Lady seedlings which we got from Dr. Ronaldo A. Sumaoang, president and CEO of Novatech Agri-Food Industries, and we are now making some money from the fruits even with this limited number. This made us interested to plant some more, and Dr. Sumaoang provided us additional seedlings, which he obtained from a seedling grower
Planted during the last wet season. the plants are now bearing fruits but definitely, the seeds used by the seedling grower were not F1s. The fruits are a clear proof of the segregating characters of the plants, as they van in size, shape, and density. Some plants bear elongated fruits, while the others have oblong fruits. Unfortunately, too, the fruits are not as close to each as those of the Fl. The plants are also tall.
It will not take long before the Philippines will have its own variety of a genetically modified (GM) papaya resistant to papaya ringspot virus (PRSV) which is the major constraint to papaya production here and in other papaya-producing countries.
The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) headed by Dr. Patricio Faylon has been working with the United States Agency for International Development, the International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications, and the University of the Philippines Los Banos-Institute of Plant Breeding for the development of a GM papaya resistant to PRSV.
