Who doesn’t like to eat fresh guavas picked directly from their own cultivated guava trees? However, even though your guava tree seems to be all matured to produce fruits, it may not because guava trees need to reach a certain age to produce fruit.
Possibly many of you aren’t aware of it, therefore, it’s natural for you to ask when guava trees grow fruit. So, let’s get into the findings ahead to learn the answers.
When Do Guava trees Produce Fruit?
The time for guava trees to start growing fruit depends on their age and the propagation process. A guava tree will start producing fruit at the age of 3-4 years old If it’s propagated through cuttings and layering. But if it’s propagated via seeds, fruit production can take up to 8 years to begin.
Guava trees are propagated differently as seed-grown and cultivated guava trees, which naturally causes a difference in the fruit production time period of seed-grown and propagated guava trees.
Here for your better knowledge, the time period for a seed-grown and a propagated guava tree to begin growing fruits have been explained in detail.
Seed Grown Guava Tree:
A guava tree grown from seeds can take a long time as 8 years to bear fruit because seed-grown guava trees are not true to their parent tree.
Here the term “not true-to-type from seeds” refers that guava trees that are grown from seeds don’t possess all the characteristics of their parent plants.
Hybrid cultivators often save and sell these purposely hybrid seeds that came from cross-pollination or outbreeding, thereby, growing a guava tree from these seeds will never be a true-to-type plant.
As a result, this type of guava tree will only keep maturing fast but won’t produce any fruit in the first 3-8 years of its lifespan.
Propagated Guava Trees:
Propagated guava trees produce fruits faster than seed-grown guava trees, in fact, as soon as a propagated guava tree will reach the age of 3 to 4 years old, it will begin to bear fruits.
Guava trees are conventionally propagated through cutting, air layering, grafting, or budding.
However, regardless of the propagation method, a cultivated guava tree comes as a true-to-type plant because such a guava tree directly grows up from the seedling phase and acquires all the characteristics of the mother tree.
As a result, a propagated guava tree not only matures faster but also bears fruits as quickly as within the first 3-4 years of its lifespan.
Things To Know About Guava Tree Fruiting:
While cultivating guava trees, questions regarding a guava tree fruiting like in which month in a year a guava tree produces fruits, the frequency of their fruit production per year, and the number of fruits each guava tree bears each year are often asked. Therefore, these 3 prevalently asked questions have been answered below for your knowledge.
The Months Of The Year When Guava Trees Produce Fruit:
Guavas being originated in tropical America are now being harvested all year round, so the trees are bearing fruits throughout all the months of the year.
However, February-March and August-October are the main months of the year when guava production is naturally at its peak.
Frequency Of Fruit Production Each Year:
Guava trees are known for growing fruits twice every year, especially in countries/locations with a warm weather all year around.
Every year the main fruits come during the summer accompanied by a smaller harvest in the early spring.
Amount Of Guavas Produced From A Tree Each Year:
A healthy and matured guava tree is able to produce 100 to 300 guavas each fruiting season. Since guava trees bear two crops per year, so including the other small crop, it can be said that a guava tree may produce approximately 600 fruits each year.
And as far it’s concerned about how much guavas in terms of kilograms/pounds, know that every year a guava tree bears 50 to 80 lbs. (23-36 kg) or even more than this.
What Causes A Guava Tree Not To Bear Fruit?
If your guava tree is not bearing any fruit, it can be an indication of several underlying issues pertaining to the nurturing process. Here the main issues have been listed below for your better understanding.
Lack Of Full Sunlight:
If your guava trees don’t get enough sunlight due to being planted in a spot with insufficient sunlight, they will not start fruiting.
Full sunlight is an essential for guava trees because sunlight helps these tropical fruit trees to reach their utmost maturation, flowering, and fruiting phase.
So, without getting the needed amount of sunlight every day, your guava trees won’t reach their maximum growth, thereby, the trees won’t produce flowers or fruits.
Deficiency Of Nutrition:
Guava trees need additional nutrition from fertilizers to grow healthily and become mature enough to start bearing fruits soon.
However, if you fail to fertilize your guava plants well, they will not receive a sufficient amount of nutrition, as a result, the guava trees won’t yield fruits with poor health.
Unsuitable Soil:
Well-drained soil is the most suitable soil for planting guava trees because their roots prefer slight moisture but not a too wet condition, and well-drained soil fulfills this condition.
But if the soil where you have planted guava trees has a wrong pH level and isn’t a well-drained one, the trees will not start bearing fruits.
Lack Of Irrigation:
Guava trees require proper irrigation to start bearing fruits on time as well as to maintain their overall growth and stability. If your guava trees are lacking proper irrigation, they tend not to produce fruits.
Lack Of Pollination:
When it comes to bearing fruits, guava trees highly depend on pollination. If the flowers of your guava trees are lacking proper pollination, they will not bear fruits.
Make sure to hand pollinate these blossoming flowers to get fruits from the trees. Guava trees are self-fruit, however, don’t leave the pollinating phase totally on them because the trees will only bear 15% of total fruit production if you let them do self-pollination.
Instead, do hand pollination to increase fruit production by up to 40%.
Tips For Encouraging Fruiting On Guava Trees:
You can always try different guidelines to encourage your guava trees to start bearing fruits sooner. Read below to know the step-by-step guideline to stimulate your guava trees to produce fruits.
Place Your Guava Plants In A Sunny Spot:
Place your guava plants in a sunny spot or make sure that every day the plants are getting enough sunshine during the daytime. This is because sunlight is a prerequisite for guava trees to create the energy that the trees require to bloom and start fruiting.
Spray Urea Before Flowering:
Then, you are required to spray your guava trees before they start blooming in the spring. You should use a 25% infusion of straight urea combined with a wetting medium. It will boost the period of guava production.
Remember to follow the guidelines regarding how much wetting agent to mix with urea solution, and then mix them in a hose end receptacle sprayer.
The fruit-bearing limbs of the guava trees should be coated with the mixture and before watering the trees, let the mixture dry fully.
Apply A Fertilizer:
In this step, you must apply a fertilizer rich in potassium to encourage guava production and enhance the overall health of the trees. By using a trowel or hoe, spread 1 pound of 8-3-9-2 fertilizer at the bottom, all around the root areas of the trees.
You need to spread fertilizer to your guava trees 3 to 4 times every year. However, if you don’t reside in tropical areas, don’t fertilize your guava trees in the fall and winter seasons.
Let The Tree Dry Out And Prune Branches:
Now, let your guava trees dry for 2-3 weeks after completing the above three steps. The water restriction will make the guava trees start breeding defense mechanisms to start blooming.
Next, you should trim the branches of guava trees to encourage new growth thereafter holding back water. Also, trim the old wood up to 3-4” into the limbs. And flowers and guavas will form in the cut spots.
Hand Pollinate The Flowers:
Lastly comes the most complicated stage which is doing hand pollination of your guava trees if there aren’t enough honey bees to do the pollinating job.
To do hand pollination, use a paintbrush used by artists and stroke in the center of the guava flowers. Doing this will spread the pollens to every flower and fertilize them to bear fruits fast.
Final Thoughts
Relying on the age and cultivation method, a guava tree that was propagated through the cutting or layering method will bear fruits at 3-4 years old age. However, a guava tree propagated through seeds may not grow fruits in the first 8 years of its life.