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Would this lead to papayas becoming a monoculture, like bananas, or 
does this technique only test ordinary seedlings?

On Jan 2, 2004, at 11:30 AM, Lon J. Rombough wrote:

> ----------
> From: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
> Reply-To: ARS News Service <NewsService@ars.usda.gov>
> Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 09:03:22 -0500
> To: ARS News subscriber <lonrom@hevanet.com>
> Subject: Replanting Papayas
>
> STORY LEAD:
> Replanting Papayas: New Tactics May Cut Costs
> ___________________________________________
>
> ARS News Service
> Agricultural Research Service, USDA
> Marcia Wood, (301) 504-1662, MarciaWood@ars.usda.gov
> January 2, 2004
> ___________________________________________
>
> The sweet taste and creamy texture of a fresh papaya make this exotic
> tropical fruit a perfect addition to a zesty salsa, colorful fruit 
> salad
> or refreshing shake. Or, you may prefer your papaya halved and served
> with a splash of lime juice.
>
> Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service and their university
> and corporate colleagues are working out a science-based strategy to
> streamline today's costly replanting of papaya orchards. They're doing
> the work in Hawaii at the agency's U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural
> Research Center, headquartered in Hilo. Most of America's papaya crop 
> is
> grown in Hawaii.
>
> Papaya trees bear fruit less than year after they're planted. However,
> yields typically taper off once trees reach 3 years of age. This means
> that most papaya orchards have to be replanted every 3 to 4 years,
> according to ARS plant physiologist Maureen M.M. Fitch at Aiea, Hawaii,
> near Honolulu.
>
> Fitch has developed a high-tech approach for simpler, less costly
> replanting. It relies on using shoots from ideal papaya plants to
> generate multiple laboratory plantlets. Screening all plantlets with a
> highly accurate laboratory test insures that the plantlets, when 
> mature,
> will produce trees with the fruit that growers and consumers want.
>
> With this approach, growers need only place one young papaya tree per
> planting hole in their orchards. That's in contrast to today's practice
> in which growers must place at least five young trees per hole to 
> insure
> a 97 percent chance that at least one will produce the desired fruit.
> The other four trees have to be chopped down, a time-consuming and 
> labor
> intensive practice.
>
> The idea of propagating perfect papaya plantlets in the laboratory
> isn't new, but the technology that Fitch is fine-tuning will be freely
> available, in contrast to proprietary techniques. Read more about the
> research in the January 2004 issue of Agricultural Research magazine,
> available online at:
> http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan04/papaya0104.htm
>
> ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research
> agency.
> ___________________________________________
>
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