Ugandans in big towns are now used to fruit salad vendors. They walk into every nook and cranny of our mushrooming shopping malls and office buildings to deliver the goodies carried in small plastic containers, which cost between Shs500 and Shs1,000.

Fruit growing is increasingly gaining prominence as more and more people get into the healthy practice of eating fruits regularly. Many farmers are therefore turning to fruit growing and the dividends are quite real. Paw paws are some of the fruits that are very much on demand and have a ready market among fruit salad vendors. Many large markets have well stocked fruit stalls and paw paws are among the most sought after fruits.

To grow paw paws, the farmer would do well to prepare the seedlings himself in a nursery. The seeds are normally extracted from ripe paw paws and dried. One farmer in Butalejja District, Ms Margaret Mukoye of Nalungujo Village, Wabusolwe Sub-county, recommends that the nursery should be lightly covered with grass to allow some rain and light to go through. If it is a dry season, she advises watering of the nursery everyday at sunset and at sunrise.

The seeds should germinate within three weeks. The farmer should spend the next four or six weeks after seed germination preparing the garden.

Spacing of between 2.5 and 3 metres is good for most of the species grown in Uganda like Honey Gold, Fairchild, Graham and Bluestem.

The farmer may plant up to four seedlings in one hole but the number must be reduced to just one per hole when the crop is at flowering stage and the sex of the paw paw tree has been determined.

It is advisable to leave one male paw paw tree among 12 or 14 females for proper pollination to take place. The paw paw crop is fairly drought resistant but irrigation is recommended in cases of prolonged drought, as it might not flower without sufficient rainfall.

Within one year after planting, the farmer should have began to harvest paw paws and he could go on doing so for the next two years after which the tree will either be too tall for easy picking of the fruits or the yields themselves will have greatly dwindled.

Growing paw paws carries with it certain risks to be cautious about. It is a delicate crop, which rots easily, and when ripe, its transportation to far off markets may be cumbersome. Pressing hard against a ripe paw paw could damage it. It is then advisable to pick it as soon as it turns yellow and before it is really soft.

The storage temperature averaging 12 degrees Celsius is enough for good sustenance especially to retailers who sometimes have to keep the fruits as they wait for buyers.For a farmer who chooses to specialise in paw paw growing, it is advisable to divide his plot of land into three parts.

He should then plant the paw paws one part after another every year so that he has paw paws ready for harvesting all the time. If he chooses to plant the paw paws at once, he will have no paw paws to sell for a period of a whole year when they become overgrown and he has to wait for another year before the next crop will reach fruition.

On the other hand, paw paws can be intercropped with other crops such as bananas and coffee. Then they can be harvested all year round and so the farmer has paw paws to sell throughout the year to supplement the income from other seasonal crops on the farm. Animal droppings or composite manure well mixed with soil and placed in the hole before planting the seedlings should be used as fertiliser for the crop.

Some people use NPK fertiliser at the rate of one kilogram per tree. The crop is also prone to some pests and diseases. Root Knot, Bunchy top and Damping off are common diseases transmitted by nematodes and bugs.

A tree infected with Bunchy top will not produce any fruit. Cutting and destroying infected trees is quite effective. Nematodes spread Root knot, a disease that weakens the paw paw plant and stunts its growth.

Nematodes abhor moist conditions and fertile soils. So mulching around trees is encouraged to fight them. For diseases that attack the paw paw seedling, Ms Mukoye recommends a local concoction made out of any hairy leaves which when squeezed produce a green juice.

She cuts the leaves into small pieces and puts them in 20 litres of water mixed with urine and red pepper and keeps it for 12 days. She says two tumpeco-fuls of the solution put into a 15 litre-spray pump can be effective against most pests that attack paw paws.