Agricultural Reviews

Papaya is one of the few important fruits which flowers and yield throughout the year. Though a polygamous species with three basic types viz., staminate, pistillate and bisexual, its cultivation with seed propagation is hindered by problems due to wide variability in sex expression and fruit characters even in small population of dioecious cultivars. In such point of view, propagation through asexual method could be a better alternative. This substitute method of propagation by cutting or grafting would be of great boon to papaya industry. This review summarizes the documented approaches made so far to overcome the constraints of inherent heterozygosity, dioecious nature and susceptibility to a large number of viral diseases by means of vegetative propagation in papaya.