Arazá
some photos courtesy of Neil Logan
text © 2010 Camino Verde, all rights reserved
Arazá, or guayaba brasileira (Brazilian guava), was introduced to the Peruvian Amazon from Brazil. It is a small tree (no more than 3.5 meters in height) with a bushy growth habit. The fruits have a complex, highly acidic flavor, and are usually used to make juice. Fruits ripen very quickly and are extremely soft and perishable, thus necessitating an early harvest, when the green fruits are just starting to show the first bits of yellow.
Seeds can take several weeks to several months to germinate, but once established the plants will grow quickly. Fruit production commences in the second or third year. (The flowers featured in the photos above are from a 2-year-old tree.) For orchard production, trees can be planted as densely as 3 m x 2 m, although this spacing will require later thinning. In mixed agroforestry systems, arazá is a versatile component given its small size and relative tolerance of shade (though heavy shade will reduce yields considerably). Probably best associated with palms, or even as an early productive element intercropped with timber trees.
Some farmers in Madre de Dios have noticed that Arazá trees will lose productivity altogether after five to ten years of harvests. This is likely due to a blight, though further research is required to determine the identity of the pathogen.
