Climatically Optimum Growth Areas Papaya Composite Of All Criteria

Papaya, or pawpaw (Carica papaya) is a tropical fruit grown widely between latitudes 32 degree N and S. High in Vitamin C, papaya is indigenous to tropical America (ARC, 2005). This fruit, initially brought to the attention of Europe around 1520, was introduced to South Africa in seed form by Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, but only grown commercially in the Lowveld of Mpumalanga for the first time in the early 20th century by a Captain Elphick (ARC, 2005). Papaya needs relatively little water in the rainy summer season in South Africa, but if irrigated every 2 weeks in the dry season it is well adapted to hot, dry areas as the fruit then matures early and is then highly palatable owing to its high sugar content (Smith, 1998). Papaya has high heat requirements, with average daily temperatures for optimum growth between 20 and 30 degree Celsius.

Determination of climatically optimum growth areas for Papaya in South Africa is based on the expert knowledge of Bower (2005) and Moll (2005), climatically optimum growth areas were determined according to the four basic criteria: Criterion 1: Heat units (base 12 degree Celsius) should exceed 2 000 days per annum, Criterion 2: Optimum areas should have a low frequency of 4 consecutive days with maximum temperatures > 36 degree Celsius, Criterion 3: Monthly means of daily average temperatures in December and January should be 23 degree Celsius - 30 degree Celsius and Criterion 4: Optimum growth areas should have a low frequency of 4 consecutive days with minimum temperatures < 17 degree Celsius. Using the 50 year time series of quality controlled daily maximum and minimum temperatures generated by Schulze and Maharaj (2004) at a spatial resolution of 1 arc minute (i.e. 1` x 1` of a degree latitude/longitude), the above four temperature based criteria were first mapped individually and then superimposed to determine the climatically optimum growth areas of papaya in South Africa.