Papaya

Papaya (Carica papaya L.), a tropical fruit crop that has its origin in the tropical America, but now well spread across the tropical world, is an important dessert fruit crop cherished for its nutritional and industrial utilization that has many applications. The fruit is commonly called papaw, papaya, papaya, while other known names across the globe include tree melon, papita (Hindi), Mgbimgbi (Igbo); Ibepe (Yoruba), lechosa (Spanish), mamao (Portuguese), papayer (French), melonenbaum (German), and mugua (Chinese). During the previous two decades, tremendous steady growth has occurred in both national and international market demands for tropical fruits with the world production figures (excluding bananas) reaching approximately 73.02 million (MT). In consideration of the wide acceptance, the papaya is now rated third following mango and pineapple. Both the local and export trade earnings of the papaya fruit provide support for thousands of growers. The crop is regarded as a source of healthy food and item of trade commodity to the local and global markets. By the climacteric nature of papaya fruit, conventional handling methods suitable for controlling ripening and improving the shelf and storage life therefore require the use of cold storage and the external application of different compounds that inhibit ethylene biosynthesis and/or prevent ethylene actions such as 6181-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP). On the other hand, the latex from papaya plant mainly from unripe fruit contains two proteolytic enzymes, papain a thiol protease and chymopapain, both of which are of great industrial and medicinal importance. The chymopapain is regarded as more abundant while the papain is twice as potent. The biochemical constituents of papaya fruit have various health benefits such as reducing cholesterol levels in human and the provision for the development of a wide spectrum of processed products, a pointer to the scientific merit of the fruit, adoptable at both the national and international levels as an affordable material for drugs formulation and medically suitable as a potential antidote for future uses. The seed of processed papaya could become a waste, but due to the high crude protein and crude fiber content and as a potential seed meal is regarded adequate as animal feed. Although breeding objectives appear similar across regions, the major focus for the consideration includes provision of resistance strains to pests and disease organisms, increase in yields per hectarage and produce quality improvement and storage traits considerations, while other considerations include the problems of sex forms and the moderation of papaya petiole length adoptable for high field stocking of papaya.