FLORIDA BABACO FRUITING REPORT
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Carica pentagona
FAMILY: Caricaceae
A number of Babaco plants (Carica pentagona) were introduced into South Florida from California in 1988 by Bill and Barbara Hopkins (Hopkins Citrus and Rare Fruit Nursery, Davie, Florida), one of which has been successfully fruited by the writer in Fort Lauderdale in 1989. According to Bill Whitman and Chris Rollins, this is apparently the first Florida fruiting of this rare exotic. If anyone in the state has any experience with growing Babaco, please feel free to contact the author though the R.F.C.I. or Hopkins Nursery, so we might compare notes.
The Babaco is the obscure sister species of the ubiquitous Carica papaya, or common papaya. While the papaya evolved to its present state in equatorial lowlands, babaco comes to us from the higher elevations of the South American Andes Mountains. Hence, we are left with the purely tropical papaya, and the strictly subtropical babaco. The evolutionary dichotomy here is virtually identical to that of the tropical sweetsop (Annona squamosa) versus the subtropical cherimoya (Annona cherimola). Therefore, we have the commercialization of papaya and sweetsop in Florida, while small commercial crops of babaco and cherimoya are developing in California.
It is a pretty safe bet that we will never see the commercialized production of babaco in Florida. However, in spite of the challenge babaco culture presents for the Florida fruit enthusiast, I feel it worthy to be recommended as a dooryard fruit in South and Central Florida. According to Glenn Tankard in his 1987 work, Exotic Tree Fruit for the Australian Home Garden, the babaco "grows well in its native Ecuador where the average maximum temperature is 20°C (43°F) and minimum is 5°C (35°F), and that a cool subtropical climate free from frosts is ideal." Anyone familiar with South Florida's summers will soon understand the agony the babaco endures during our wet season. It is for this very reason why I decided to grow babaco as a pot plant. This provides the grower with an all-important mobility so the plant can be moved to a cooler and drier location during April through September, but allowed the benefit of full sun from October until March. This mobile pot culture was in great part responsible for my babaco fruiting success.
For many rare fruit enthusiasts without available land, pot culture would provide a mutually acceptable arrangement for you as well as your babaco. However, it should be noted that pot culture aggravates the second notorious problem of growing babaco. If papaya has been documented as being 'susceptible' to root rot, then babaco surely must be classified being 'very susceptible' to root rot pathogens. In fact, this has been the ultimate downfall of all previous attempts at fruiting babaco in Florida, for while it will tolerate warmer than ideal temperatures, Phytophthora root rot is in reality the very cancer of babaco. But just like cancer, we can effectively deal with root rot. I recommend:
(1) using a very light-weight, free-draining potting mix;
(2) do not overpot your plant;
(3) allow the soil to dry out between every watering; and
(4) apply periodic fungicidal soil drenches.
If you follow these four recommendations, I don't see how you can fail.
One might wonder how babaco fares with the papaya fruit fly. Papaya fruit fly in my area is so bad a problem that I have given up trying to grow papaya. Even the tiniest week-old fruit are stung beyond recognition. However, I was delighted to discover that apparently, babaco is completely immune to this destructive pest. Luckily enough, the fruit on my plant also suffered no attacks from the Caribbean Fruit Fly (Anastrepha suspensa).
It is interesting to note that like bananas, and unlike its close relative papaya, babaco is strictly parthenocarpic, meaning that it requires no pollination for fruit set, and that fruits produced are entirely seedless. Here is an advantage that Annona growers can appreciate! Hence, babaco is always propagated asexually, namely from tip cuttings rooted with rooting hormone and bottom heat. Babaco has also been propagated through tissue culture.
When a young babaco plant reaches about a foot in height, it starts flowering in the same fashion as papaya from the axil of each new leaf petiole. Most of these young fruit will abort like so many small mango fruit, but if it gets cool enough along about January through March, you will be delighted to find that your plant has set some fruit for you to enjoy. Each one will enlarge over the summer into a unique five-sided (hence its species name of pentagonal torpedo-shaped fruit, and ripen to an attractive canary-yellow color.
The cream-colored flesh of the babaco might be just the type of fruit you can appreciate. Many have complained that tropical and subtropical fruit are too strong-flavored, i.e. guava, passionfruit, durian, or excessively sweet, i.e. sapodilla, sweetsop, casimiroa (formerly known as 'white sapote'). If you are looking for a unique, but subtle flavor free of great sweetness, babaco may be the fruit for you. Flesh texture is similar to that of casimiroa or papaya. A mangosteen it is not, but I rather enjoyed both the flavor and texture of babaco, and found it more to my liking than any papaya I've ever sampled.
Once ripened, I have found that babaco fruit can be frozen, or stored in a refrigerator for as long as a month (longer than carambola) with little or no degradation in quality. It is my impression that babaco is the type of fruit that could be quite versatile when it comes to culinary use. As with many obscure fruit of warmer climates, there is considerable room for experimentation along this line.
DATE: March 1990
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