Bogor Guava (Fly Resistant Guava) – Seed

Bogor guava is a cultivar brought into the US by fruit grower Maurice Kong. Maurice Kong is one of Florida’s great legacy plant collectors, having introduced gems like PPK mango, Sein Ta Lone mango, Ice Cream mango and many other types of excellent fruit. Some years ago he imported this guava from Indonesia. What is unique about this variety is that it is resistant to fruit fly infestation, the very trait that piqued Mr. Kong’s interest when people in Indonesia showed him this tree. Mr. Kong generously shared a tiny tree when I visited his Miami garden filled almost entirely with plants he imported from countries he visited around the world. I don’t know the degree that this variety has been shared with others, but I have never heard of anyone else cultivating it.

So far, our tree has genuinely been resistant to fruit fly infection, the true bane of guava cultivation. Without bagging, guavas are generally a top choice for Caribbean fruit fly larvae. This leads many people to eat them with their eyes closed or avoid entirely, and renders them useless for selling. Our tree has ripened perfectly maggot free fruit while nearby trees of other varieties have been teeming with them. The guavas have purple flesh and are a good quality guava to eat. We have had a fairly limited amount of fruit to evaluate. Time may show that not every single fruit is fly free, we simply don’t know yet.

It would be ideal to produce Bogor guava vegetatively to replicate the unique fly resistant qualities of the tree. At this time, we do not have the capacity to offer any amount of trees this way. In fact, we haven’t even made a back up specimen yet. In the mean time we are offering seed. We have no idea how heritable the fly resistance trait is. Only time will tell if seedlings grow type to type for this particular trait. Seedlings of this tree should not be called “Bogor”, which Mr. Kong applied to this particular clonal material. If you grow a tree to fruiting age of this variety from our seed, please report back on how the fruit handles flies!

Psidium guajava

30 seeds