Subject: Re: need info pineapple guava

From: [email-masked] (Pudji Widodo)
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 21:51:20

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Shelley Bell) writes:
>From: [email-masked] (Shelley Bell)
>Subject: need info pineapple guava
>Date: 8 Aug 1995 20:20:53 GMT

>If you can give me any info about pineapple guava (size, water, sunlight, 
>space, would it make a good hedge, etc.), it would be appreciated.

>Thanks
>Shelley Bell

8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Dear Shelley,

Do you mean one or two kinds of fruit?  I know pineapple and guava two kinds 
of fruit.  Pineapple (Ananas comosus) is included in the Fam. Bromeliaceae 
with leaves like swords.  It can reach 1.5 m tall with the fruit on top. It 
does not need much water. But needs enough sunlight.  The space between each 
plant 1.5 m.  While guava (Psidium guajava) of Fam. Myrtaceae with stem 
diameter can reach 20 cm, and 10 m tall with big canopy (can be 10 m in 
diameter).  It does not need much water.  Both types of plants are distributed 
a lot in tropical countries.  They are very popular fruits in my country 
(Indonesia), either as table fruits or as juice fruits.  There are some big 
companies which produce pineapple juice and guava juice.

Thanks,
PUDJI WIDODO
Department of Plant Science
Lincoln University
CANTERBURY
NEW ZEALAND

Email:  [email-masked]
8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

---

From: [email-masked] (Ian B Staples)
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 11:49:37 GMT

[email-masked] (Pudji Widodo) writes:

>      ....m.  While guava (Psidium guajava) of Fam. Myrtaceae with stem 
>diameter).  It does not need much water.  

I'm not sure what you mean by "much water".  I've seen guava growing like
a woody weed in parts of Madagascar, and also here in Australia on the
lower slopes of the Palmerston Range near Innisfail.

In both cases on reasonably good loamy soils (basaltic in the local case)
and moderate to *high* (3,000 mm ) annual rainfall.  It's a long time
since I was in Madagascar, so I'm not too sure now what the rainfall amount
or distribution was there where I saw the guavas growing wild.  But Innisfail
is very definitely in the hot wet tropics, with rain all year round.

I have a couple of guava trees growing here in Mareeba, on rather poor soil.
Our rainfall is only around 1,000 mm/year and very seasonal (>80% falls in
the six months Oct-Mar) and my trees suffer badly from drought if I don't
water them regularly during the dry season.  They also suffer badly from
fruit-fly infestation here in the tropics -- you have to eat them a bit
on the green side, before the grubs are big enough to see easily.  ;-)

Cheers,  Ian S.

-- 

Ian Staples                        E-mail : [email-masked]
c/- P.O. Box 1054 MAREEBA          Phone  : +61 (0)70 928 555 Home 924 847
Queensland Australia 4880            Fax  : +61 (0)70 923 593   "   "   "

---

From: Jan Forbes <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 95 23:33:48 GMT

In article Shelley wrote
>>space, would it make a good hedge, etc.), it would be appreciated.

Shelley - the white or 'strawberry' guava is quite different from the
pineapple guava or "Feijoa" as it is known. There is also another small
red guava known as a cherry guava. I don't know the scientific names but
thought this may help!

---

From: [email-masked] (Ian B Staples)
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 1995 13:13:51 GMT

>red guava known as a cherry guava. I don't know the scientific names ..

Nothing is as simple as you expect when you start.  :-(
(Maybe I should stick to fishing -- but you can't be too careful
when people from gbrmpa are around  ;-)

According to Willis (6th ed.) the genus _Psidium_ (Myrtaceae) contains
about 110 species from trop. America and the West Indies, many with
edible fruit.

Terrell (USDA Agriculture Handbook 505) mentions 5 species and some
synonyms.  In particular:

_P. cattleianum_	= strawberry guava, purple guava.
_P. friedrichsthalianum_= wild guava
_P. guajava_		= common guava
_P. guineense_		= Guinea guava
_P. montanum_		= mountain guava (surprising, that :)

In a similar sort of publication here in Oz, Hartley ("A Checklist of
Economic Plants in Australia" CSIRO: Melbourne 1979) calls _cattleianum_
the cherry guava, and agrees that _guajava_ is just "guava".

The pommie guru of all things tropical, the inimitable J.W. Purseglove
("Tropical Crops: Dicotyledons" Longman: London 3rd imp. 1974) agrees
w.r.t. _guajava_, largely ignores _guineense_ and _freid..._, and claims
that _P. littorale_ is the strawberry guava and its var. _lucidum_ is
the yellow form of the same.  He also introduces us to _P. microphyllum_
and calls _montanum_ the wild guava.

Purseglove regards _cattleianum_ as a synonym of _littorale_, Terrell
would have it the other way around.  As the latter dates from 1977,
perhaps opinion had swung back by then?

Cheers,  Ian S.

(God it's a long time since I caught a coral trout.)
--