Thanks Embothrium, from the looks of that thread it looks like I could get fruit from a red lady papaya that only produces female flowers.

I don't quite understand how since I see only a single pistol in each and every flower, no stamens or pollen whatsoever. Maybe it could produce fruit that contains infertile seeds?

My plant is about 5.5' tall. Maybe it has to reach 6' before bearing fruit ( I think someone on that thread said that) Maybe it will begin to produce stamens then. Idk. I remember growing melons that produced all female flowers first and then later on male. So that might be it.

U have some before & after pics ? : )

Pics from when I first planted the papaya? Lol No , I never seem to think of it at the time. But that would have been nice to do especially of a plant that grows so fast

Joe - I bought a Red Lady Papaya tree from Lowe's three years ago. The store had a couple of small sickly trees about 3 feet tall, loaded down with fruit and a bunch of smaller young, very healthy looking plants, no fruit. I picked one of the smaller plants and had very high hopes for it. Well, it grew quickly and I got tons of flowers but not a single fruit :-(

After a year of all flowers, no fruit, I cut the tree in half (I read that when the tree is stressed/'traumatized' it produces fruit). I planted the top half in a pot, not really expecting it to survive. But, both the top half of the tree and the bottom stump soon started sending new leaves out, followed by tons of flowers and NO FRUIT!!!!!

Last spring, I finally gave up on it and was getting rid of the plant, when my neighbor saw me and asked me if he could have it. He was convinced that such a healthy tree would fruit. He planted it and the tree continued to grow. Same story, flowers, no fruit.

Unlike other papayas, the 'Red Lady' is supposed to be self-fertile, so you don't need a male and a female plant. I don't know what was going on with the one I bought, I hope you have better luck than I did!

Thank you so much for sharing your experience VML68.

Yes, self fertile means a plant can pollinate it's own flowers using it's own pollen but since there's no pollen to speak of!...

Would be nice if I could find a pollen producing papaya plant somewhere to put near my red lady. I've got no idea where I would find one though.

Update: My lowes papaya plant started producing fruit even without any male flowers and without any source of pollen. I picked my first two ripe fruits recently. When I sliced them open there was not even one seed inside them.

I always grew them from seeds. They grow very fast. I start them in small cell packs and plant a male and female. Actually, you just need one male and you can have multiple females. They don't need to be near each other either. My male was planted in the front of the house and the females in the back yard.

Within 6 months they were all flowering and producing fruit. I had tons of fruit, more than I could eat. Gave a bunch away.

I just buy supermarket Papayas and plant some of the seeds.

Very easy except for the small fly which lays its eggs in the fruit. I wound up using bags to cover the fruit to keep the worms away.

Jane

Joe, from what I've read, female papaya flowers will form fruit with no seeds if they are not pollinated.

I started a whole bunch from seed during the summer. They're 8" tall now. I'm interested in topping the red lady once it gets to a certain height and planting the top. I've been reading that if the top roots then it will likely just continue on flowering close to the ground and fruit way sooner than seed grown papayas.