| Origin | Native to Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. |
| Description | It is a good looking pear or round shaped seasonal fruit, light green, yellow or maroon coloured skin from outside when ripe, with white or pink flesh and lots of small hard seeds enveloping very soft and sweet pulp. |
| Growth Habitat | Guavas are cultivated in many tropical and subtropical countries. |
| Foliage | The leaves, aromatic when crushed, are evergreen, opposite, oval or oblong, irregular in outline; 7-15 cm long, 3-5 cm wide, leathery, with obvious parallel veins, and more or less downy on the underside. |
| Flowers | Faintly fragrant, the white flowers, borne singly or in small clusters in the leaf axils, are 2.5 cm wide, with 4 or 5 white petals with a prominent tuft of perhaps 250 white stamens tipped with pale-yellow anthers. |
| Fruits | Guava fruits may be round, ovoid or pear-shaped, 5-10cm long. Varieties differ widely in flavor and seediness. The flesh may be white, pink, yellow, or red. In some guava varieties, the sweet, musky odor is pungent and penetrating. The seeds are numerous but small and, in good varieties, fully edible. |
| Harvest | Fruit should be picked when a change of colour occurs. This stage is referred to as the “adult green” stage. Guava fruits develop best flavour and aroma only when they ripen on tree. |
| Soil | The guava seems not fussy as to soil, doing equally well on heavy clay, marl, light sand, gravel bars near streams, or on limestone; and tolerating a pH range from 4.5 to 9.4. It is somewhat salt-resistant. Good drainage is recommended. |
| Pruning | Shaping the tree and removing water shoots and suckers are usually all that is necessary. Guavas can take heavy pruning, since the fruit is borne on new growth, pruning does not interfere with next year’s crop. |
| Fertilization | Mature trees may require as much as 225gm actual nitrogen per year. Apply fertilizer monthly, just prior to heavy pruning. Potassium, phosphate, zinc and boron are also required depending on soil conditions. |
| Propagation | Propagation can be done through seeds, root cuttings, air-layering, grafting, patch budding and even pruned branches may be used. |
| Nutritional Properties | Guavas are rich in dietary fiber, vitamins A and C, folic acid, and the minerals potassium, copper and manganese. A single common guava fruit contains about four times the amount of vitamin C as an orange. Red-orange guavas have a higher level of antioxidants than the yellow-green varieties. |
| Health Benefits | It is said in Asia, “A few guavas in the season can keep the doctor away for the whole year!” - Guava has four to five times more vitamin C than an orange. - Guava leaves and unripe fruit are very good for diarrhea and dysentery. - Rich in dietary fiber it is an excellent laxative for constipation. - Juice of raw and immature guavas or decoction of guava-leaves is very helpful in giving relief in cough and colds because of its antibacterial, antiviral and astringent properties. - Abundantly rich in vitamin-A, B, C and potassium which are very good anti oxidants and detoxifiers, it can improve skin firmness and texture by eating ripe guava or by washing your skin with the decoction of its immature fruits and leaves for its astringent properties. - Guava, being very rich in fiber and hypoglycemic in nature, helps reduce blood pressure and cholesterol. - Guava, being very high in roughage and very rich in vitamins, proteins and minerals, is excellent for weight reduction and also helps those underweight to gain healthy, normal weight. |
| Commercial Uses | The greatest commercial uses of the fruit are in jams, bottled or carton juices, jellies, guava pulp, guava paste, preserved dried guava slices, dried teas, canned products. |
| Food Suggestion | Guava Smoothie - 1 Guava - 1 banana - 250ml orange juice - 1 tsp. lemon juice - 1 tablespoon. honey - 2 handfuls of ice Method : 1) Slice banana into bite-size chunks. 2) Cut guava in half and scoop out pulp. Cut up the pulp. 3) Put half of the fruit in the blender together. 4) Pour in lemon juice and add one handful of ice to blender and blend. 5) After the ice is blended fairly well, add the honey, the rest of the fruit, and the rest of the ice into the blender and blend to the consistency you prefer. Also good with plain or vanilla yogurt or soy protein mix blended in. |
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