Papaya King of San Pablo

by Zac Sarian

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WRAPPING HARVESTED PAPAYA — Carmelo Ramos (second from left) is the acknowledged Papaya King of San Pablo City with three different papaya plantations in San Pablo City in Laguna. His biggest plantation is in Brgy. Soledad where he grows 12,000 papaya trees consisting of three varieties, namely Sinta, Red Lady and Red Royale from East-West Seed Company. From the Soledad plantation, he harvests an average of 8 tons a week, most of it bought by a big trader in Metro Manila. Here he is overseeing his workers who are wrapping the fruits with newspaper prior to putting them inside plastic crates in his warehouse for for pick up by his buyers.

A former seaman who worked as an oiler in a rescue ship that went around the world rescuing vessels in trouble is now the acknowledged Papaya King of San Pablo City.

He is 54-year-old Carmelo ‘Milo’ Ramos of Brgy. Soledad, San Pablo City in Laguna. Right now, he has three papaya plantations in three different places in this provincial city where he has planted a total of 18,000 papaya trees of different ages.

His currently most productive plantation is in Brgy. Soledad where he has a total of 12,000 trees consisting of three varieties. These include 5,500 Sinta, the hybrid produced by the Institute of Plant Breeding in Los Baños, Red Lady developed in Taiwan, and Red Royale developed by plant breeders of East-West Seed Company. The planting materials are all distributed by East-West.

From the Soledad plantation, he harvests about 8 tons a week, most of which is bought by a big trader from Metro Manila who pays an average of P15 per kilo. The seconds (rejected by the big buyer) are sold to stallholders at Nepa Q-Mart in Quezon City and roadside stalls in Laguna.

Ka Milo was a seaman for nine years, enjoying his job because he was able to go around the world. While working at sea, however, what an old lady fortune teller had told him when he was a young boy was always on his mind. The fortune teller, he said, had told him that his good luck will be found on land and not at sea.

Thus, after 9 years as a crew member of the rescue ship, he decided to give up his maritime job and become a farmer in his home barangay. That was in 1999. First, he and a relative planted rambutan trees on land owned by his family. While waiting for the rambutan trees to grow and bear fruit, they decided to plant Sinta papaya which had become popular at that time.

RED ROYALE — This is a dwarfish variety of papaya developed by East-West Seed Company that is one of the varieties being grown by Carmelo Ramos in San Pablo City. The first fruits are just a few inches above the surface of the soil. It is highly prolific, yielding oblong fruits. Carmelo buys ready-to-plant seedlings from East-West instead of germinating the seeds himself. He finds it more practical that way.

That first papaya venture was an instant success. They harvested no less than 50 tons from the 1,000 Sinta papaya trees they grew. Although the selling price then was only P7 to P8 per kilo, it was very profitable. He estimates that they did not spend more than P100,000 to produce the 50 tons worth P350,000 to P400,000 in a matter of two years.

Since then, Ka Milo has always been planting papaya. After new varieties like Red Lady and Red Royale have appeared on the market, he did not hesitate to try them in his plantations.

Aside from making money for himself, Ka Milo is providing a lucrative source of income for young men who work for him as pickers of the ripening fruits. As soon as the fruits show signs of color break (a portion of the skin becomes yellow), the fruits are harvested. This is to prevent the fruits from being damaged by fruitfly.

As many as 15 workers are hired to harvest the fruits each time. After doing the harvesting, they wrap each fruit with old newspaper, load them in a trailer for delivery to Milo’s warehouse where the buyers pick up their requirements. Milo said that the workers are P250 per half day of work.

Milo shows that one need not own every land that he cultivates. There are many farms that are for rent. Milo, for instance, rents the 6-hectare Soledad plantation for only P5,000 per year per hectare. He said that the owner is a friend who owns a lot of farm lands. Being a good friend, he can get that for practically a song. The term is good for at least two years.

What is good about using rented land for papaya production is that one can relocate his plantation every so often. The advantage is that there is less possibility of disease prevalence when every now and then a new site is used for growing papaya. There is no build up of viruses and other disease organisms, for instance.

INSPECTING HIS SINTA PAPAYA — Photo shows Carmelo Ramos, the Papaya King of San Pablo, posing with his fruitful Sinta papaya, one of the three varieties he is growing in his Brgy. Soledad plantation. Sinta is a hybrid produced by the Institute of Plant Breeding at UP Los Baños. It is a prolific hybrid that remains a current favorite of growers in Luzon. It has yellow flesh that is sweet. It is claimed to be tolerant to papaya ring spot virus.

Ka Milo is happy with papaya because the gestation period is quite short. For instance, the papaya trees from which he is harvesting a bumper crop in Brgy. Soledad were planted in December 2012 through the following January. By the following September, he already started harvesting from them. And he expects to make a good harvest for at least 15 months from the first harvest.

Right now, he is already readying a new plantation that will take over the production from his Soledad plantation. This early, he has placed an order of a few thousand ready-to-plant seedlings from East-West Seed. Because he orders by the volume, he is also given a good discount.

Mrs. Ramos, the former Maria Victoria Gonzales, is handling the finances of the farm. She takes care of the income as well as the payroll for the workers.

Besides his papaya project, Milo is also involved in buying fruits of rambutan and lanzones in partnership with his brother-in-law. He said his brother-in-law, Ruben Gonzales, is a very hard working guy who takes care most of the chores of contracting the buying of fruits from other plantation owners.

Even before the flowers of the fruit trees come out, they might have already contracted to buy the harvest. Most of the time, they make money but there are also times when they only break even or even lose money. But that is the reality in the business, according to Milo.

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Myths and facts about papaya

by Nelly Favis-Villafuerte

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Many in the male gender avoid eating papaya because they believe that papaya lessens their sex drive. Not true. They are wrongly informed. On the contrary, papaya contains arginine which is essential for male fertility.

Let me share with you some information taken from the Internet about the deliciously sweet papaya that is available year-round in our country – to encourage us to eat fresh papaya fruit rather than canned fruits.

• Do you know that papaya which reportedly originated in Southern Mexico and Costa Rica was brought by the Spaniards to Manila in the mid-16th century? Today, papaya is grown not only in the Philippines but in other places as well like China, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Central and Southern Africa, Australia and in some Pacific Islands;

• Do you know that papaya is good for many digestive disorders and improves poor digestion? Papain is the enzyme in papaya that helps the body digest protein and starchy carbohydrate like wheat gluten/bread/cereals. This being so, those with celiac disease (a condition that damages the lining of the small intestine and prevents it from absorbing parts of food; the damage is due to a reaction to eating gluten, which is found in wheat, barley, rye, and possibly oats) should be encouraged to eat papaya. Papain is being extracted from papaya (unripe papaya has more papain content than the ripe one) and used as health supplement. Papaya, one of God’s gift to man has surprisingly a beneficial tonic effect in the stomach and intestines. Thus, curing stomach ailments and indigestion;

• Do you know that papain is used to treat sport injuries and also trauma and allergies;

• Do you know that aside from Vitamin C, papayas are rich sources of beta carotene, folic acid (folates) vitamin B and flavonoids, soluble fiber potassium, magnesium, and pantothenic acid – all of which help prevent different kinds of cancers in organs and glands and improve cardiovascular health and cure other diseases? Low folates, for example is reportedly related to Alzheimer’s disease;

• Do you know that papaya is low in sugar and is therefore good for diabetics;

• Do you know that papaya juice helps relieve infections of the colon and prevents nausea (including morning sickness and motion sickness);

• Do you know that papaya juice has inflammatory properties due to its enzymes papain and chymopapain? Also, papaya hastens the recovery of one suffering from burns. Unknown to many, chymopapain is being used in the treatment of slipped spinal disc and pinched nerves;

•  Do you know that papaya reduces the external and internal inflammation of diseases worsened by inflammation like asthma, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteo-arthritis;

• Do you know that pregnant women are being advised to avoid papaya because it is a uterine stimulant (stimulates labor pains by increasing the intensity and frequency of uterine contractions). Also, people with the so-called “latex allergy” should consult their doctors before taking papaya because of possible allergic reaction to certain foods like fruits. In layman’s terms, latex allergy is allergy to natural rubber latex – like elastic bands, rubber/latex gloves, balloons, clothes, shoes, and other things that contain natural rubber latex. There are some people with latex allergy who may also have an allergic response to some plant products like fruits (latex-fruit syndrome). Fruits (and seeds) like bananas, pineapple, avocado, mango, and strawberry should therefore be avoided by those with latex-fruit syndrome. Likewise, those taking blood thinning medication on a regular/maintenance basis (like aspirin) should consult their doctors before taking papaya because the fruit has anticoagulant properties;

• Do you know that the skin of papaya is an external treatment for wounds;

• Do you know that the black seeds of papaya with a peppery flavor is edible and are used not only to expel worms but also used in the treatment of cirrhosis of the liver due to different causes like alcoholism and malnutrition. Not many know that a tablespoon of juice extracted by grinding the seeds and mixing it with 10 drops of fresh lime juice taken once or twice daily for a month is already being used as a treatment of a patient suffering from cirrhosis. As an antihelmintic (drugs that expel parasitic worms from the body), the papaya seeds are chewed and swallowed (2 teaspoon of seeds) after each of the 3 principal meals;

• Do you know that as a home remedy for throat disorders like inflamed tonsils for diphtheria – the fresh juice of raw papaya mixed with honey is used also as a treatment;

• Do you know that among the cancers treated by papaya is colon cancer? Simply because the fiber in papaya is able to bind itself with cancer-causing toxins in the colon and the fiber can distanced the cancer-causing toxins from the healthy colon cells;

• Do you know that some culinary aficionados rub slices of green papaya over tough meat to make the meat more tender? Especially in the rural areas where the pressure cooker (tenderizer) is an expensive cooking utensil which the rural folks cannot afford.

Need I say more about the health and curative benefits of papaya?

Have a joyful day!

For your retirement and other real estate needs, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com.

Know your papaya’s sexual expression

by Zac Sarian

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There are different ways of disseminating improved farming practices. One activity that we attended recently, which we think is a very effective way of sharing the latest techniques in growing crops, was the Papaya Expo organized by East-West Seed Company.

This was in the papaya plantation of Jeff Arabelo, 68, in Brgy. Sagasa, Bago City in Negros Occidental. The venue was ideal because the papaya trees are heavily laden with fruits that are just several inches above the ground. That could have easily convinced the 125 farmers who attended that indeed hybrid papaya can be a money maker.

The organizers of the expo also had a smart way of conducting it. They put up tents in five different sections of the plantation in such a way that the attendees had the chance to cover the entire plantation.

In each station, an expert was detailed to explain the particular topic assigned to him, complete with posters as well as actual specimens. The attendees were divided into five groups. Each group followed their assigned leader to their first designated station. After that they proceeded to the four other tents to listen to the explanations of the other experts.

PAPAYA’S SEXUAL EXPRESSION. In our case, our group first proceeded to the tent manned by Jason Villegas who explained the sexual expression of the papaya plant. He explained that there are two sexes of the papaya that bear fruit. One is the true female tree. This has flowers that have ovary but no pollen so their flowers have to be pollinated by pollen-bearing flowers.

The pollen-bearing plant that usually provides the pollen needed by the female papaya is the “bakla” or hermaphrodite. This has both ovary and pollens. Villegas explained that the “bakla” is less stable than the female papaya. Aberrations like ‘catface’ and ribbing of the fruits occur, especially when there are weather problems, like when it is too hot and the soil is too dry and the plants are not watered. The ‘catface’ fruit does not have the usual symmetrical shape of the papaya fruit.

Despite the supposed instability of the “bakla” papaya, consumers prefer the fruits of the hermaphrodite. The hollow of the fruit is smaller than that of the female tree. That’s because the “bakla” has oblong fruit while that of the female is roundish.

There is a third sex in papaya, and that is the true male. It produces flowers that don’t develop into fruits.

This was blown down by Yolanda but has survived and is very fruitful. Jeff Arabelo and his fruitful Red Royale papaya.

Ric Reyes of East-West addressing the attendees of the Papaya Expo.

PESTS AND DISEASES. One station in the expo was manned by an expert in pests, diseases, and other problems. In this station, we were briefed about the most destructive enemy of papaya, and that is the ring spot virus. This is the disease that wiped out the papaya industry in Cavite many years back. The expert detailed how this can be avoided.

One recommendation is to plant resistant varieties like the new hybrids. Another is to control the aphids that spread the virus. One other way to avoid this disease is to plant in a place where no infected papayas were grown in previous years.

Other destructive diseases are phytophthora and anthracnose. One way to avoid these is to provide good drainage, and also clean culture. Good nutrition is necessary to make the plants strong and resistant to stresses that could make them susceptible to diseases.

Ailyn Infortuno explains how to produce healthy papaya seedlings.

THE VARIETIES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS. In one station, the assigned expert described the characteristics of the different hybrid papayas in the market. Of course the expert emphasized the advantages of planting the red-fleshed Red Royale and the yellow-fleshed Cariñosa. They are both low-growing, high-yielding and of good eating quality. They can also withstand strong winds better than the tall varieties.

SEEDLING PRODUCTION. Ailyn Infortuno, an expert in producing seedlings in the home office of East-West, was brought to Negros to do the demo in producing healthy papaya seedlings.

One trick she disclosed was to soak the papaya seeds for five days before sowing. However, the water should be changed every day. That will make the seeds sprout immediately.

She also demonstrated how to sow the seeds in a seedling tray, using a sterile medium that consists of coco coir dust, river sand, and carbonized rice hull. She also disclosed what fertilizer to use and when to apply.

In 40 days from sowing, the seedlings should be ready for field planting.

LAND PREPARATION, PLANTING, AND HARVESTING. The last station was manned by an expert in land preparation, planting, care of the plants in different growth stages, and harvesting.

All in all, it was a complete menu for producing a bountiful harvest from a papaya project.

For your retirement and other real estate needs, please visit http://www.gregmelep.com.