Making Pineapple Guava Set Fruit

Q. Does pineapple guava need a pollinator plant to produce fruit? The edible flowers bloom in May and have the wonderful taste of cotton candy! Should I get my pineapple guava tree a boyfriend?

Flowers of Pineapple Guava

A. First, let’s talk terms. A pollinator is an insect that helps plants produce more fruit by transferring pollen from one plant to another. Examples of pollinators are honeybees. A pollenizer is the plant that supplies this pollen to another plant to help it produce more fruit. So, I think you are asking for a pollenizer plant for pineapple guava.

A pollinator, honeybee, visiting a peach flower and it will encourage fruit set.

Now let’s talk pineapple guava. If the flowers are pollinated properly by a pineapple guava that is not exactly the same as the mother plant (pollenizer), the flowers will produce fruit. Some plants may be even self-fruitful to a degree. The amount of fruit produced depends on the number of flowers it produces and closeness to a pollenizer plant.

To make sure to get fruit from the flowers, give the plant a “boyfriend” (or girlfriend). The reason for this are because of its genetics. In technical terms, the flowers can be non-receptive to pollination by the same or similar plant (variety or cultivar) depending upon genetics. So to make sure you get fruit, plant two different varieties of a pineapple guava in close proximity, otherwise it might be a trickle of fruit at best. The flowers of pineapple guava are edible and the taste is not affected by a pollenizer.

Pineapple Guava and the Desert

Pineapple guava performs well in desert landscapes. They can handle our heat and they can handle our cold. They can even handle a lot of the rock mulch used in many landscapes. But they are “normal” water users (mesic) and not xeric like many of our native desert plants.

Flowers of pineapple guava with the same genetics are "self infertile"... in other words as much as the honeybee visits these flowers they will not set fruit. Even if the honeybee visits other pineapple guava, if they are too similar genetically then they will not create fruit. But the flowers are still yummy!

Pineapple guava is a good choice for our desert climate in landscapes, but they are not true “desert plants” so they grow better with a little bit of organics like compost mixed in the soil at planting time.