Paano Magtanim ng Bayabas: How to Plant Guava the Traditional Way
Paano magtanim ng bayabas? Here is how traditional Filipino farmers usually plant bayabas (guava), step by step from getting the field ready to the harvest, with the day of each step and what to change for a higher yield.
This guide shows how traditional farmers usually plant bayabas. Use it as a starting point. For a higher yield, update it: plant certified seed or clean planting material, test your soil, and follow the right spacing and fertilizer.
This guide shows how Filipino growers usually plant native bayabas and big fruited guapple from a marcot or grafted seedling, and care for it until the first fruits. It suits backyards and small orchards.
Before you plant, get the field ready with our land preparation guide for fruit and plantation trees. Then choose your seed or planting material with the bayabas nutrient deficiency guide. For more on the crop, read pagtatanim ng puno.
When to plant bayabas
Seedlings and marcots are planted as the rains begin, around May to July. Guava likes a dry climate with rain spread through the year and stands dry spells better than most fruit trees. Where water is on hand it fruits through much of the year.
What you plant
Most growers plant a marcot (air layer) from a branch about as thick as a finger, or a grafted seedling, taken from a tree with good fruit. Marcots are cut once roots show, grown on in a bag and kept in shade for at least two weeks before planting. Native bayabas also grows easily from seed, but the fruit varies and the tree bears later.
Paano magtanim ng bayabas, step by step
A marcotted or grafted guava can flower from about 8 months after planting and fruits mature 90 to 150 days after flowering, so the first small harvest comes at about 12 months. Bigger crops follow from the second year. The crop is ready about 12 months after planting.
Before planting (Bago magtanim)
30 days before planting: Clear the land and mark the spots
Plow or clear the land and loosen the soil, burning or removing brush on new land. Mark the planting spots about 3 m by 3 m for guapple, or wider for big native trees.
14 days before planting: Harden the marcots
Keep the bagged marcots or grafted seedlings in light shade for at least two weeks so they get used to the field. Water them daily.
7 days before planting: Dig and fill the holes
Dig holes about 50 to 60 cm wide and deep and refill them with topsoil mixed with manure or compost. Mix in about 100 to 150 g of complete fertilizer (14 14 14) at the bottom.
The nursery (Punlaan)
3 months before planting: Make your own marcots (pagmamarcot)
Guava roots easily from marcots, so many growers make their own on a tree with good fruit and cut them as soon as roots show.
- Choose the mother tree and the branchPick a tree that bears every year, with good fruit and no pests or disease, and not too old. On it choose a branch about half an inch thick, about as thick as a finger, neither too young nor too old, growing upward in the sun, with no flowers or fruit on it.
- Mix the rooting ballMix garden soil with rice hull, or with mudpress from a sugar mill or coir dust where you can get it. Wet it until it holds together when squeezed but does not drip.
- Peel a ring of barkWith a clean, sharp knife, cut twice around the branch a short distance apart and peel off the bark between the cuts. Scrape off the slippery green layer under the bark too, or the bark heals over instead of making roots.
- Wrap and tieHold a piece of clear plastic around the branch below the ring, pack a ball of the moist mix over the whole ring, close the plastic around it and tie both ends tightly with plastic straw.
- Wait for the rootsLeave the wrap on the tree and look at it every week. Cut the marcot as soon as white roots show plainly through the plastic.
- Cut it and bag itCut the branch just below the ball with sharp shears or a saw. Take off the plastic gently, without breaking the ball, and plant it in a 6 by 8 inch bag of two parts soil, one part compost and one part rice hull.
- Nurse it in the shade2 weeks in the shadeKeep the new plant in the shade, out of the rain, and water it daily. After two weeks move it where it gets some sun, and pick off any flowers so it grows roots and leaves first.
Planting day (Pagtatanim)
Planting day: Plant the seedling
Cut the bag away without disturbing the roots and set the plant at the depth it grew. Fill in, press the soil and water at once if the ground is dry.
Care while it grows (Pag aalaga)
Day 14: Pinch the tips
When new leaves come out, pinch off the growing tips so the plant sends out more side branches. More branches mean more fruiting shoots later.
Day 30: First feeding
One month after planting, give about 100 to 150 g of complete fertilizer (14 14 14) in a shallow furrow around the plant. Feed again about six months later, a little more as the tree grows.
Day 30: Weed and plant crops between
Loosen the soil lightly and weed under the young tree before each feeding. In the first year, vegetables, legumes, ginger or gabi can grow between the rows.
Month 2: Water in long dry spells
Guava needs little watering, but in a long dry season water every 5 to 7 days to keep it growing and fruiting.
Month 4: Shape the young tree
Within the first three to four months, cut off root sprouts, low branches and dead or sick twigs. Keep the tree low and open so it is easy to bag and pick.
Month 8: Thin the first fruits and bag them
The tree may flower from about 8 months. Leave only a few fruits on a young tree, about five on a one year old guapple, and wrap each in newspaper and a plastic bag when it is about the size of an egg. Tip: Bagging keeps out fruit flies and sunscald.
Month 9: Watch for fruit flies and leaf pests
Check the young leaves for aphids and whiteflies and the fruits for fruit fly stings and dark spots. Pick up and bury fallen or rotten fruit and keep the ground weeded.
Harvest (Anihan)
Month 12: First harvest
Pick by hand when the fruit is full sized and its green skin turns lighter. Guapple is often picked at about 300 to 500 g for market.
Watering bayabas, stage by stage
Guava stands dry weather better than most fruit trees, so most backyard and farm trees here live on rain alone. Guapple growers in places with a long dry season water every 5 to 7 days by hose or furrow so the trees keep flowering and fruiting through the year. A hose or pail into a ring basin around each tree on small farms, and furrow or drip watering on bigger guapple farms. Water in the cool early morning or late afternoon.
The first weeks after planting a marcot. Flowering and fruit set, when dry soil drops the flowers and young fruits. Fruit filling in a long dry season, which leaves fruits small and hard.
| Stage | When | How often | How much |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardening the marcots | 14 days before planting to planting day | Every day, in light shade | Enough to wet each bag right through |
| Planting to new leaves | Planting day to day 30 | Soak on planting day and again on the third day, then every 5 to 7 days when no rain falls | A good soak of a ring basin around the stem |
| Young tree to the first flowers | Day 30 to month 8 | Every 7 to 10 days in the dry months, not needed in the rains | A soak of the ring basin, widened as the tree grows |
| Flowering and fruit set | Month 8 to 10 | Every 5 to 7 days in dry weather | A deep soak of the ground under the leaves |
| Fruit growth to the first harvest | Month 10 to 13 | Every 5 to 7 days in dry spells, keeping the soil evenly moist | A deep soak under the leaves |
| Bearing trees, flowering and fruiting through the year | Month 13 to 24 | Every 10 to 15 days in the dry months for grown trees, every 5 to 7 days in a long dry season to keep the crop coming | A deep soak of the ground under the crown |
Without irrigation. Plant as the rains begin and keep a mulch of cut grass or leaves around each tree. Guava rides out dry months on rain alone, but a rain fed tree rests in the dry season and bears mostly after the rains come back. In very dry places, a basin on the downhill side of each tree catches extra rain.
In the dry season. Grown trees every 10 to 15 days, or every 5 to 7 days in places with a long dry spell if you want fruit all year. Young trees every 7 to 10 days. Water when the soil a finger deep is dry, when the leaves droop by midday, or when flowers start falling.
In the rainy season. Guava takes rain well but not standing water: plant on ground that drains, open drains in low spots, and do not let water stand around the trunk. Wet, crowded trees get more fruit rot and fruit flies, so prune for air and pick up fallen fruit.
- Too little water: Leaves droop and curl by midday, older leaves turn reddish or yellow and fall, new shoots stop, flowers drop, and fruits stay small and hard.
- Too much water: Yellow leaves, slow growth and rotting roots on waterlogged ground, and more fruits rotting on the tree.
To water better for a higher yield: Drip lines save about half or more of the water of basin or furrow watering and let a farm keep guava fruiting through the dry months. Keep the ground under the trees mulched and water every 5 to 7 days from flowering until picking in dry weather, for bigger, smoother fruits.
Spacing, water and fertilizer for bayabas
Spacing
About 3 m by 3 m for guapple orchards, about 1,100 trees a hectare, with the trees pruned low. Native bayabas left to grow tall is spaced wider, often 5 m or more.
Water
Guava stands dry spells well and is mostly rain fed. In places with a long dry season growers water every 5 to 7 days so the trees keep fruiting.
Fertilizer
Manure or compost and about 100 to 150 g of complete fertilizer (14 14 14) in the hole. Young trees get about 200 to 300 g of complete fertilizer a tree, given one month after planting and again six months later. Bearing trees get more, from about 300 g up to 1 kg of complete fertilizer with some muriate of potash (0 0 60) and 16 20 0, placed in a shallow furrow under the edge of the leaves. Many farmers use nitrogen while the tree is young and complete fertilizer once it fruits. To read what a bag really gives, see our guide to fertilizer for this crop.
Care and harvest
Care while it grows
Pinching the tips after planting for more branches, early shaping, removing root sprouts and low or dead branches, weeding and loosening the soil before each feeding, thinning young fruits, and wrapping fruits in newspaper and plastic against fruit flies. Many guapple farms keep trees pruned to about 2 m for easy bagging.
When and how to harvest
Fruits mature about 90 to 150 days after flowering, or about two months after wrapping. They are picked by hand when full sized and the skin turns a lighter green. In peak season growers pick every day or two so fruits do not over ripen or get stung by flies.
Common mistakes when planting bayabas
- Planting seedlings from seed when you want the same fruit as the mother tree.
- Letting a young tree carry too many fruits, so they stay small.
- Not bagging fruits, so fruit flies ruin most of the crop.
- Leaving rotten and fallen fruits under the trees.
- Letting the trees grow tall, which makes bagging and picking hard.
- Planting in waterlogged ground.
How to get a higher yield of bayabas
The traditional way gets a crop, but small changes add up. These are the first things to change, one season at a time.
- Plant marcots or grafted seedlings from a proven, healthy mother tree or an accredited nursery.
- Test the soil and feed by the result, with more potash once the trees bear.
- Prune lightly after each flush to keep trees low and open.
- Bag every fruit at egg size and keep the orchard clean of fallen fruit.
- Scout weekly for fruit flies, aphids, whiteflies and fruit spots.
- Water during long dry spells for steady fruiting through the year.
anee.io helps with each of these. The NPK Plus calculator checks that your fertilizer plan feeds the yield you want, the pest and disease finders tell you what is on the leaves before you spray, and Anee, the smart farm technician answers your questions in Tagalog or English.
Members open this guide in the How to Plant tool and send every step to the Protocol Builder in one tap, each on its own day. There you can change the seed, the spacing and the fertilizer, then turn it into a cropping calendar for your lots.
Start from the traditional way, make it better, and let anee.io date every task from your own planting day. Free to start.
Start freeQuestions about planting bayabas
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