Guava cultivars of the world

Guava is mainly a self-pollinated crop but cross pollination does occur. This results in large variability in the seedling population from which promising genotypes have been selected in different countries. There are more than 400 guava cultivars, but only a few dozen are commercially cultivated. Some of the well-known selections from India are ‘Allahabad Safeda’, ‘Sardar’ (‘Lucknow-49’), ‘Lalit’, ‘Swetha’, ‘Arka Mridula’ and the hybrids ‘Safed Jam’, ‘Kohir Safeda’, ‘Arka Amulya’ and ‘Arka Kiran’. The important cultivars of Brazil include ‘Paluma’, ‘Rica’, ‘Pedro Sato’, ‘Seculo XXI’ and ‘Sassaoka’. ‘Media China’ and ‘China’ are the two major cultivars of Mexico. Cultivars ‘Enana Roja’, ‘Cubana’, ‘EEA 1-23’ are popular in Cuba. The most popular cultivars of Vietnam are ‘Le Dai loan’, ‘Nu hoang’, ‘Khong hat’, ‘Xa li nghe’, ‘Ruot do’, ‘Se’ and ‘Tim’. Cultivars ‘Jen-Ju’, ‘Di Wan’, ‘Pearl’ and ‘Rainbow’ are grown commercially in Taiwan. In South Africa, ‘Fan Retief’, and ‘TS-G2’ are commercially grown. ‘Kim Ju’, ‘Pan Si Thong’ and ‘Sa Li Thong’ are commercially grown in Thailand. In Florida, two type pink and green cultivars are grown. Pink type include ‘Homestead’, ‘Barbi Pink’, ‘Blitch’, ‘Hong Kong Pink’, ‘Patillo’ and the green type include ‘Crystal’, ‘Lotus’, ‘Supreme’ and ‘Webber’ while in Hawaii, ‘Beaumont’ and ‘Ka Hua Kula’, are popular cultivars. Cultivars ‘Kampuchea’, ‘GU4’, ‘Gu5’ and ‘Gu7’ are grown in Malaysia. Some of the Indian cultivars like ‘Safeda’, ‘Allahabad’, ‘Lucknow-49’, ‘Red Fleshed’, ‘Seedless’, ‘Kerala’ and ‘Apple Colour’ are popular in Pakistan. Introduced cultivars of Australia are ‘Allahabad Safeda’ and ‘Lucknow’ from India and ‘Beaumont’ and ‘Ka Hua Kula’ from USA. The major objectives of hybridization/selection of cultivars in all countries are high yielding, high fruit quality, fewer soft seeds, attractive skin and pulp colour, long storage life and wilt resistant. This paper briefly discussed the situation of guava cultivars in the major guava growing countries of the world.