Anyone here growing pinapple guava in zone 9 or 10? I would like to plant several of these plants, but have read that fruit quality varies between cultivars. Which cultivars are best for fruit quality? Which two cultivars pairs are best for pollination?


Someone here mentioned they purchased some seedlings in SE Texas and the fruit was famine food terrible. I want to make sure I am purchasing good fruiting variety with preference from named cultivars.

Do most pineapple guava seedlings produce inferior fruit? They are very difficult to propagate from rooted cuttings from what I have read and most of the plants availble for purchase are from seeds.

Get a named cultivar. Pretty much any named cultivar will do but there are descriptions here:
http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/feijoa.html
Fruit from seedlings can be soapy-aweful tasting or really good, so with a named variety you are at least getting something someone liked the taste of.
You can air-layer them but rooting cuttings isn't easy.
Good ones are florally and perfumey sweet. Also, petals on the flowers are edible.
They are easy to grow plants, drought-tolerant and ornamental.

i am growing a pineapple guava here in deep south texas zone 9 or 10 i think. First year mine is fruiting so well see how good it is , it is a seedling grown.
They are easily air layered ,but i did get 1 out of three to root by cuttings
and it was the size of liek 2 pencils put together

Check with people from your local CRFG chapter http://www.crfg.org/local/chapters/tx_houst.html
They should be able to tell you what feijoa cultivars should work in Texas.

I have seedlings that produce small fruit that I think taste great, and I have a "Nikita" variety (Link) that I hope will flower/fruit next year.

I always hand pollinate and eat the fruit after it falls off the bush. It tastes to me like a kiwi with a little mint flavor. One of my seedlings produces about egg-shaped fruit, the others are smaller. I do eat the flowers as well.

Last year was the first year I got blossoms & the few fruits fell off. There's a lot of blossoms but I don't see fruits forming yet. How do I keep the fruits on if they develope?

Patty
I learned from my grandpas guava that you need two in order for fruit set.
First year his flowered it had no fruit set next year I got him another because my grandma loved the flowers. Coincidently it set a ton of pineapple guavas after I got him the second one.
Do you have 2

TRI, no , I'm afraid our frost would kill it. We can get to below zero at times.
Hi David, I have 3 other diff kinds of guava but no blossoms on any. I swear that last year some blossoms developed into fruit & got to about 1/2 inch & fell off. I thought they were self fertile. Guess I'll just have to wait & see. Thanks.

I got a few to develop this time compared to other years.

Anyone have some fruiting?

Seedlings are all that is available around here. They aren't propagated for fruit. The fruit produced are tiny, not tasty famine food. I pulled mine up long ago. They are as useless as goumi.

I'vee never seen a named variety for sale.