GUAVA PRODUCTION AND IMPROVEMENT IN INDIA: AN OVERVIEW

Guava is the fourth most widely grown fruit crop in India. The area under guava is about 0.15 million hectare, producing 1.80 million tonnes of fruit. Bihar is the leading state in guava production followed by Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The popular varieties of guava grown in India are Sardar, Allahabad Safeda, Lalit, Pant Prabhat, Dhareedar, Arka Mridula, Khaja (Bengal Safeda), Chittidar, Harija etc. Hybrid varieties like Arka Amulya, Safed Jam and Kohir Safeda were also developed. Most plantings are raised by marcottage however, wedge grafting is increasingly become popular. The usual practice is to accommodate 275 plants per ha, however, high density planting (555 plants per ha) has been found highly productive. The Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture, Lucknow has developed Meadow Orchard System for guava which accommodates 5,000 plants per ha (1 × 2 m) coupled with regular topping and hedging. Nutrient management based on leaf tissue analysis has been developed. Intercropping model at the pre-bearing stage for different agro-climatic situation has been standardized. Most of the growers regulate flowers to eliminate inferior quality rainy season crop and to have good crop in winter. Deblossoming is usually done by higher concentration of urea (10-15%) or by bending of shoots. Winter fruits are quite often wrapped individually with polyethylene bags to protect fruit fly infestation and attractive colour development.