Just in case anyone is interested I found an answer. After muddling thru all the modules, and seeing how it was done, I decided to get the latest version of gpg ( 1.4.1) and look thru the docs for a new option called --command-fd which is a file descriptor which gpg will use to accept commands in a --no-tty mode. It works. :-)

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use IPC::Open3;

local $SIG{CHLD} = 'IGNORE';
local $SIG{PIPE} = 'IGNORE';

my $childpid = open3(\*IN, \*OUT, \*ERR,
     'gpg  -v --no-greeting --no-tty  --command-fd 0 --status-fd 1 --e
+dit zentara');

print IN "trust\n5\ny\n";
close IN;

my(@answer,@err);

 @answer = <OUT>;
 print "out->@answer\n";

 @err = <ERR>;
 print "err->@err\n";
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