Papaya tree help!

My papaya tree was growing great. Now it has black dots on the underside of some leaves, flowers are turning brown and leaves are yellowing and dying quickly. Can I save it? Please help

Welcome to Permies, Cary!
Your papaya looks great. As it gains height the bottom leaves must fall off. They yellow, die, and fall off and whatever opportunistic fungus or whatever moves in. If the green leaves up high start getting fungus then I'd worry, but your tree looks just fine. Just knock off the yellow leaves (they should fall right off just touching them), throw them in your compost, and keep on doing what you're doing.

Yess it is more like a palm tee with a bare trunk where the old levees came off.  You have the advantage of it being next to a porch so the fruit will be reachable.

Thank you! The leaves started turning yellow so much faster than they had before so I was worried something was wrong with the trees. It seems like I have 15 dead leaves on the ground from the past two weeks. Is that normal?

I think you just have a quickly growing young tree. Is it springy where you are, or are you getting rains or something that might cause a growth spurt?

I’m in Florida. No rain for a while but I did just start watering it a little more. Not too much but definitely more than I had. Thank you for your help. I love these trees

I agree, papayas are awesome. They grow so fast. I throw seeds out in the garden and let them just do their thing- we eat the green fruit as a vegetable, so I don't care too much about ripe fruit quality-- the seeds are from the ripe fruit I buy every so often. Recently I've had some male trees come up and I've left them for the hummingbirds, who love the year-round flowers (even though they don't make fruit).

I've also had a few trees that grew fast and pooped out after frost damage (grown and done in a year, that quickly) and another that just keeps hanging on- grew to about 12 feet tall, top got frost burned, I cut it down to about 4 feet, and it resprouted. I have neighbors who've had the same tree for years, so I think it really varies.

Your flowers and buds look great, and it was a smart move to plant it near the porch. Hope you get a lot of fruit!