Papayas are normally sold to consumers when they are at least one-quarter ripe. Peel color may vary from yellow to reddish-orange, depending on the variety of papaya. Three Hawaiian varieties Solo Sunrise, Kapoho, and Waimanalo are the most popular, and Solo Sunrise is the most important in world trade. Papayas of all three varieties are relatively small, normally weighing from 250 to 500 grams. Some countries are beginning to produce and export several Taiwanese varieties, which tend to be larger than those from Hawaii.
Some markets require very large, local varieties of papaya.
In the Latin market in the United States, for example, papayas weigh about 3 kilograms. Fruit shape is not a function of variety but of the sex of the plant the fruit grows on. Round fruit comes from a female plant, and traditional pear-shaped fruit comes from a hermaphrodite plant. Because the market prefers pear-shaped fruit, female plants are normally removed from production as soon as their sex is known. Commercial papayas are normally harvested 9 to 10 months after being transplanted from nurseries.