Diagnosis and management of nutrient constraints in papaya

Abstract

Carica papaya L. is a particularly high yielding tropical crop, originally from Central America and the South of México; its domestication is attributed to the Aztecs and Mayas (Fuentes and Santamaría, 2014). As it originates and is grown in tropical and subtropical regions (Céccoli et al., 2013), the crop suffers from chill conditions in temperate regions. The crop is now found in different tropical regions around the world. The Caricaceae family, which C. papaya L. is part, is composed of six genus (Carica, Vasconcellea, Horovitzia, Jarilla, Jacaratia, and Cylicomorpha); most of them with an American origin and as shown in Fig. 42.1 can be found growing in wild areas, for example, in Central America. Only one of the genus (Cylicomorpha) is found growing wildly in regions of Africa, even though it is hypothesized that Carica has an African ancestor that traveled by surface sea currents through the Atlantic Ocean and started to colonize in the American continent (Carvalho and Renner, 2014).