The Papaya in Hawai’i

Dioecious papayas were introduced shortly after Cook's 1778 discovery of Hawai'i but were supplanted for commercial uses by the gynodioecious solo papaya brought from the Caribbean in 1911. Growth of a local papaya industry based on hermaphrodite plants was enabled by research allowing prediction of seedling sex segregation and by development of cultivars with high quality, symmetrical fruits free of stamen carpellody, and carpel abortion. The industry expanded into export markets after 1940 by providing an alternative use for land and expertise abandoned by declining sugar plantations, adopting a cultivar capable of tolerating long-distance shipping, developing postharvest technology to overcome fruit fly quarantine restrictions, capitalizing on a growing tourism industry for marketing and air freight logistics, and forming an organization to support industry growth. In recent years, the industry has withstood pest and disease challenges by adopting innovative technologies that have allowed high-quality solo papayas to continue to participate in an increasingly competitive export market.