Researchers at the Plant Biotechnology Laboratory of the Center for Agricultural Research (CIA) have taken a new step in the development of Pococí hybrid papaya, known in the country as “perfect papaya”, a variety produced by the University of Costa Rica and the National Institute of Innovation and Transfer in Agricultural Technology (INTA).
Scientists developed a cloning protocol (micropropagation) that will allow producers to purchase only hermaphrodite plants and save time, money and increase productivity.
In papaya production, sex is a very important aspect as it determines the ability of the plant to produce quality fruits. Hermaphrodite plants produce papayas with better shape, more pulp and with less internal cavity, ideal for the export market.
Currently, the reproduction of this variety is made with seeds that can give female or hermaphrodite plants and, according to Arturo Brenes, coordinator of the laboratory, by acquiring only hermaphrodite plants, farmers will be sure that each plant they plant will produce the best quality papaya.
In the country it is also possible to apply tests of sexing at the molecular level to determine the plant sex. However, this technique, that has been used since 2002, continues to be expensive for the farmer because each analysis has an approximate cost of $ 2, as explained by Brenes, so cloning hermaphrodite plants is seen as a better option.
In order to standardize the cloning protocol of hermaphrodite plants, researchers invested more than three years and several field tests have been carried out to evalue the in-vitro, cloned material. The cloned plants showed better characteristics in the field because they are more vigorous, the trunk is thicker and they start to produce before and they keep the original characteristics of the papaya.