How to Recognize a Female and Male Plant Seed
In our trip to Zambales a few days ago, I learned some interesting facts about growing things in one’s backyard, very common of which is the papaya plant. Papaya is a soft-wooded perennial plant that has an average lifespan of 5 years and would grow about 4 meters high. The flowering stage is from five to eight months after planting and harvesting comes around five to six months after that.
My sister-in-law is a certified farmer, she underwent a complete 6-months seminar given by the Dept. of Agriculture. She shared with us what she learned and gave us some seeds of different vegetables which are quite easy to grow, given a small space ,even just in pots.
I was not even aware that you would be able to know whether that papaya tree in your own backyard will bear fruit or not. Most of us just wait for papaya to produce flowers before we will be able to detect whether it is a male or a female. Papaya flowers are just like jasmine blossoms. The flowers of female papayas are close to the stems while that of the male ones produce long flowers. But we really don’t have to wait for six months before we’ll be able to know if they are worth cultivating or not. That’s a waste of time and space, according to my sister-in-law. We know for a fact that only female papayas produce those sweet and delicious fruits. One sure way of knowing is this, papaya male plants have one straight root while those of the females are branched-out, producing two or more roots, they’re the only ones that you have to transfer and plant. Interesting!
Tomatoes are capable of self-pollination so they grow fruits on their own. Same goes true with squash. We have planted some squash and tomatoes in our small backyard and they’re growing by leaps and bounds everyday. We also planted pechay (Pak Choi) in small pots. Eggplant seedlings are sprouting like crazy. I can’t wait, I am quite excited waiting for everything to grow.
20 responses to “How to Recognize a Female and Male Plant Seed”
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- - June 16, 2016
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it so nice knowlegde!!!!!!!!…….
congratulation , you are the only one web site who identify the papaya plant by the root .Me cambodian born , but living in canada now ,over there every one know how to identify it .Even many people used to say that you can divide the male root , with the knife , to make it like female one , then replant it .But I never try this . All other web site I visit , even the most scientific one , still say ” we have to wait until we can see the flower” and they show male and female flower.:))
Last year , I try a dozen of seed , I m very surprise that all of them are MALE.
As may people said , any kind of seed can become male or female depend of the condition like temperature , humidity at the germination .
Now Im looking for persimmon tree ,Every one say the same , wait until to see the flower .IT DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE to wait many many year .
somewhere in my research i read that the black seed of papaya is female , well i’ve been planted a lot of that black seed and as result they are all male
Old folks told me that in a papaya fruit, female seeds cluster at stem portion of the fruit, while male seeds at the other end. How true is this? Thanks for your information, I have finally found a precise way of distinguishing female papaya trees from male. Does this fact apply likewise to other trees like lychees, mangoes, calamansi, passion fruit, etc?
We could try planting them to validate the claim. Breeders of big seed companies have a way of sorting males and females, who knows it could be one of their methods.
I haven’t tried it yet because we have no space in growing papayas in our garden. Why don’t you try it? BTW, thanks for visiting my blog Bedy.
I don’t know if it actually works with other fruit trees. My sis-in-law said it works with Papaya so you could discard those male papayas even at the time that they are just sprouting roots!
this good research but consult i tell you how to identify female papaya from seedlings in the market
Here in Kenya we separate the male from female seeds before making the seed bed. The seeds are put into a bowl of water just after they have been extracted from the fruit. The ones that float are male and those that sink are female.
onesmus, i think this is the most time and space saver technique, let me try this today. thanks!
i also grow them in kenya and just as onesmus said it works perfectly
How do you recognize them?
I’m in kenya n i’m sorting the seed. I thot i could tell by their colour. But nw i’l place them in a bowl of water n see the results and aftr i’v prapared the seedbed i’l watch for the roots too thanks guyz
You’re welcome Newton.
even male papaya tree it will be female tree by using toli……
that’s great info.. I have been growing multiple plants that are almost ready to be transferred to a bigger pot.. sure didn’t want to wait 6 months to find out i was growing male trees
many thanks from Miami
You’re welcome Mike, but I think that is only for papaya plants.
One of the know how the seed were male and female… when you apply bore a seed to the water and see if that male seed are sink and floated seed were female… not sure if this is possible but this technics were told by my grandsparent…
That’s nice to know, thanks a lot!