Volunteer papaya has a fruit on it!

[Rose bloom]

There is a huge one, easily more than half a foot.

[imafan26]

We have some very large papaya. They are called watermelon papaya and can grow larger than a football. Usually the really big ones are on trees that don't have a lot of crowded fruit. Very large fruit are usually female and if underpolinated they won't have a lot of seeds. My dad had one one time that had 2 seeds.

Most fruit from female trees will fall if not polinated but on occasion a female tree will be able to get mature fruit but the clue would be the lack of seeds.

You cannot tell if your tree is male, female or hermaphrodite until it is 5 months old and has started to flower. Ignore the first flowers because there will be a lot of males and few females. (no fruit in the flower). It is natural, but does not necessarily mean you have a male tree. Hermaphrodites will produce male flowers first.

Sunrise and X77 (Waimanalo low bearing) are non-GMO cultivars. They are solo type papaya. Rainbow is GMO and is widely sold in most markets here and on the mainland. It is a sweet yellow fleshed fruit that is resistant to papaya ringspot virus.

Sometimes I can get these to grow at my house but they don't survive at the community garden. There is an easy test available now to test for GMO contamination. The leaf is tested for the gene. There are people who still don't want to eat GMO fruit by choice and others by sheer ignorance. Most papaya grown in backyards here are from saved seeds or seeds from unknown varieties. Most people don't care about the pedigree if it tastes good. The one bad things about the purists are that if you want a pure variety, you will have to isolate and rogue out any trees the birds bring. GMO papaya will cross with any other papaya and papaya are polinated by insects so it is not uncommon for someone to unknowingly be growing a GMO papaya. My friend, touted the fact that his non-GMO (unknown) papaya was growing next to his neighbor's obviously infested plant and remained healthy. I think if he tested that tree, odds are his papaya had the PRSV resistant gene.

I grow mostly GMO papaya because there are squash all around me. Papaya ringspot virus is thought to be a mutated version of a squash virus that jumped hosts. Squash may be asymptomatic hosts of PRSV. My neighbor does not cut down his infested tree so the only ones that will survive have to have GMO genes. GMO papaya have been around since 1998 and are perfectly safe to eat. I prefer Malaysian papaya but they are not ringspot resistant. I had 5 trees at one time and my mother came and raided them regularly even though she had her own trees. I tried to plant more but because of the neighbor's infested tree they all got the virus early and I had to cut them down.

The GMO modification was the insertion of a gene that coats the virus and prevents it from causing the disease.
Papaya ringspot virus is a problem worldwide and other countries are also looking at GMO techniques to save their livelihoods. GMO techniques were developed to make life easier for people not to harm them.
https://www.agbioforum.org/v7n12/v7n12a07-gonsalves.htm
https://www.biofortified.org/2014/03/gm ... ut-people/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2409016/
https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/F_N-5.pdf

[Rose bloom]

I'm pretty sure it's a female, because all the papaya have no seeds, but it's still producing and our neighbor's papaya plant (a few houses down) died a few months ago. So I don't know..it's weird.

[imafan26]

Occasionally a female papaya will set and hold on to fruit. They are usually round and large and have few to no seeds.

Besides chicken papaya soup, try to make Thai green papaya salad. it is very nice, the only thing about it is that once the dressing gets put on it has to be eaten right aways since it will get soggy fast.
https://www.thaitable.com/thai/recipe/green-papaya-salad

[Seananers]

Well looks like somebody knows how to make fruit

[Rose bloom]

Yeah, but imafan, the tree is continuously fruiting; as I look out the window now, I can see MORE flowers. Crazy tree. In winter, it's still fruiting at a ridiculous rate. If you take a green papaya, you can make a sort of tong sui soup with it. White fungus, lotus seed, dried jujubes (homegrown), water, and some sugar added make a lovely dessert. You can also cook it savory, like winter melon. I'm so hungry now...

[Seananers]

Yeah, but imafan, the tree is continuously fruiting; as I look out the window now, I can see MORE flowers. Crazy tree. In winter, it's still fruiting at a ridiculous rate. If you take a green papaya, you can make a sort of tong sui soup with it. White fungus, lotus seed, dried jujubes (homegrown), water, and some sugar added make a lovely dessert. You can also cook it savory, like winter melon. I'm so hungry now...

Now I want papaya ice cream. THANKS ALOT

[applestar]

Had too look up White fungus -- apparently also known as Snow fungus. I wonder if H-mart would have it or would I need to go to a more Chinese or SE Asian grocery store?

...photos on internet of white/snow fungus with wolf and goji berries dessert. I'd love to see yours.

[applestar]

Haha I HAD to find out more --

Tremella fuciformis, the snow fungus Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for January 2006
https://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/jan2006.html


Since it was found growing on wood in nature, it was assumed that this fungus was using the wood for its nutrition. However, for many centuries Tremella eluded cultivation. So why can't it be cultivated on wood, like shiitake, Oyster mushrooms, the pom pon mushroom, or enoki? In the absence of wood, this species tends to grow as a yeast, adding another problem for potential cultivators, who threw out the subcultures as contaminants, thinking they had one of several hundred species of yeasts, ...

The process is relatively easy once you know the ecology of the growth....

I also found out it's also known as Shiro Kikurage in Japanese (and the kanji/Chinese? 雪耳 -- going off-topic but "kikurage" is the black or tan wavy fungus often found in Chinese (and Japanese) food, and in Japanese means "Tree Jellyfish" -- written in kanji as 木耳. First character is "tree" but the 2nd character is "ear". Above, 雪耳 characters are "snow" and "ear" ). ---maybe I'm the only one who found all these intriguing...

Found this on instagram labeled as purchased at Hmart, so I'll look for it next time I'm there. Maybe they keep them in the front herbal medicinals cases with gingseng, etc.

[imafan26]

Papaya will continue to fruit once it starts until it dies or is cut down. Papaya "trees" are really giant herbs. They have fibruos stems that are not woody. The core of the papaya tree is hollow. Usually when it grows old the bottom of the tree starts to rot. Most people will cut the tree once they can no longer pick the fruit. If you top it and put a coffee can over the top of the stem to keep water out, the papaya will grow arms but only keep one or two or the fruit size will get very small. It will allow for pickable fruit a little longer and give you time to raise another one. It is recommended to plant 3 to 5 trees to try to get at least one that is a hermaphrodite. They can be planted all together and culled or planted 10 ft apart and then you keep the good ones.
If yours is a pure female and your neighbor's tree is gone, you might find more of your fruit dropping from not enough pollination unless there is another tree nearby.

Your soup sounds good.
Green papaya can be used to make Thai Green papaya salad and we use the green papaya to make chicken and papaya soup. Papaya can usually be substituted for squash or gourds in soup. Half ripe papaya can be shredded and pickled with a little chili pepper to give it some heat. Green papaya is also used sometimes as a meat tenderizer since it breaks down protein. You would just lay thin slices of papay on top of the meat for about an hour. You have to remember not to leave it on too long or it changes the texture of the meat too much. Papaya are added to tropical fruit salad along with coconut and pineapple. A popular way to eat it is with the center filled with cottage cheese. It can be used to make jam, smoothies or popsicles. It can also be made into a desert.
https://www.thekitchn.com/chilean-spring ... ime-168864

[Rose bloom]

Haha I HAD to find out more --

Tremella fuciformis, the snow fungus Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for January 2006
https://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/jan2006.html


Since it was found growing on wood in nature, it was assumed that this fungus was using the wood for its nutrition. However, for many centuries Tremella eluded cultivation. So why can't it be cultivated on wood, like shiitake, Oyster mushrooms, the pom pon mushroom, or enoki? In the absence of wood, this species tends to grow as a yeast, adding another problem for potential cultivators, who threw out the subcultures as contaminants, thinking they had one of several hundred species of yeasts, ...

The process is relatively easy once you know the ecology of the growth....

I also found out it's also known as Shiro Kikurage in Japanese (and the kanji/Chinese? 雪耳 -- going off-topic but "kikurage" is the black or tan wavy fungus often found in Chinese (and Japanese) food, and in Japanese means "Tree Jellyfish" -- written in kanji as 木耳. First character is "tree" but the 2nd character is "ear". Above, 雪耳 characters are "snow" and "ear" ). ---maybe I'm the only one who found all these intriguing...

Found this on instagram labeled as purchased at Hmart, so I'll look for it next time I'm there. Maybe they keep them in the front herbal medicinals cases with gingseng, etc.

Here's an approximation of what mine looks like: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ANgTLkgjpIU/U ... re+056.jpg. The lotus seeds are usually only sold at Asian markets; when buying the dates don't buy the sticky Medjool ones (ours are jujubes from the tree). Have fun making it!