What countries do feijoas grow in?

You haven’t truly experienced the scent of autumn in San Diego until you’ve walked past a hedge of Acca sellowiana in full fruit. I remember the first time I realized just how potent this plant is; I was checking the irrigation lines in my back 40 when a perfume reminiscent of pineapple, mint, and cheap bubblegum hit me like a freight train.

Alexander Mitchell

That was the moment I fell in love with the Feijoa, often called the Pineapple Guava or Guavasteen. While I lovingly nurture these shrubs here in our coastal Mediterranean climate, I often find myself marveling at the incredible journey this species has taken. It’s a globetrotter, settling into specific pockets of the world that mimic its ancestral home.

Understanding where these green gems thrive isn’t just trivia; it’s the blueprint for how we get them to produce bumper crops here in Southern California. If you want to fill your buckets with fruit, you have to understand the geography of the plant’s soul. We aren’t just talking about a random tropical bush here; this is a cool-subtropical survivor that demands specific conditions to set fruit.

Here at Exotic Fruits and Vegetables, we’ve found that mimicking the specific environmental triggers of its native lands is the only way to guarantee a harvest worth bragging about.

The Ancestral Home: South America’s Highlands

The story starts in the cool highlands of southern Brazil, eastern Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina. This is where the plant evolved, not in the sweltering Amazon jungle, but in the resting phases of the Atlantic Forest and the pampas. In these regions, locals often call it Guayabo del pais. The plant grows naturally at altitudes ranging from 1,600 to 3,200 feet, where the air is crisp and the nights dip significantly in temperature.

The Feijoa was named after João da Silva Feijó, a Brazilian botanist who didn’t actually discover the plant but was instrumental in the scientific exploration of the region in the early 19th century.

In its native habitat, the rainfall is consistent, averaging about 40 to 60 inches annually, distributed fairly evenly throughout the year. This explains why my plants here in San Diego throw a temper tantrum if I let the soil dry out completely. I once ruined an entire batch by assuming they were as drought-tolerant as my olives; the fruit dropped prematurely, hard as rocks and completely flavorless. Now, I maintain soil moisture similar to a wrung-out sponge, ensuring they get about 1.5 inches of water weekly during the swelling period.

Uruguay and Argentina

In Uruguay, the feijoa is so culturally embedded that it’s almost a national symbol in the countryside. They don’t farm it in nice neat rows like we do in California; it often grows wild or in semi-wild hedgerows. The genetic diversity there is staggering. You might find a bush producing fruit the size of a golf ball next to one dropping fruit as large as a duck egg. The climate there provides roughly 300 to 500 chill hours (hours below 45°F), which acts as the biological clock waking the buds up for spring.

New Zealand: The Commercial King

If South America is the mother, New Zealand is the rich uncle who paid for the feijoa’s education. Kiwi growers took this somewhat obscure South American shrub and turned it into a global export powerhouse. New Zealand is currently the largest commercial producer in the world. Why? Because their maritime climate is nearly identical to the plant’s native highlands but with better soil management.

Ever wonder why some fruits split before ripening while others remain perfect?

It usually comes down to consistent humidity. New Zealand’s North Island provides a steady atmospheric moisture that prevents the skin from cracking. In San Diego, when the Santa Ana winds blow and humidity drops to 8%, I have to run overhead misters just to keep the fruit skins pliable. The Kiwis have bred cultivars like ‘Apollo’, ‘Kakapo’, and ‘Wiki Tu’ that are far superior to the generic seedlings often sold in American nurseries.

I’ve tracked the yield differences between wild types and New Zealand cultivars in my own orchard to see if the hype was real. The results were undeniable.

New Zealanders eat these things like apples. They scoop them, slice them, and even brew them into vodka. Their season runs opposite to ours, from March to June, keeping the global market supplied when our trees are just waking up.

The United States: A California Love Affair

Here in the US, feijoas are primarily a California phenomenon, though you will find brave souls growing them in parts of Texas, Florida, and the Pacific Northwest. However, the sweet spot for commercial quality feijoas in the US is the cool coastal strip of California, spanning from San Francisco down to us in San Diego. We have the chill hours (barely, in some years) and the long, moderate summers required to ripen the fruit.

Our team at Exotic Fruits and Vegetables loves comparing notes with growers in the San Joaquin Valley. While they can grow the trees, the blistering 105°F heat often scorches the fruit or causes the plant to drop its crop in self-defense. In my orchard, located in Zone 10b, I rely heavily on the marine layer—that coastal fog bank—to regulate the temperature. If the thermometer hits 90°F, I’m out there checking soil moisture immediately.

Warning: While Feijoas are cold hardy down to 15°F, a hard frost during the flowering season (late spring) will kill the blooms and destroy your entire crop for the year.

My breakthrough came when I realized that while the plant tolerates heat, the fruit hates it. I started planting them on the east side of my taller avocado trees. This gives them full morning sun but protects them from the harsh, scorching rays of the late afternoon. Since making that switch, my fruit size increased by about 20%.

The Caucasus and Mediterranean Europe

This is the part that surprises most people. The former Soviet Union invested heavily in feijoa cultivation. Countries like Georgia (the country, not the state) and Azerbaijan have massive plantations. They recognized the fruit’s high iodine content—ranging from 8 to 35 mg per 100g—and promoted it as a health supplement for inland populations deficient in iodine.

In these regions, the climate around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea offers a humid subtropical environment that mirrors Uruguay. The winters are mild enough to prevent the tree from freezing but cold enough to induce heavy dormancy. Dormancy is like the plant’s power nap; the deeper the sleep, the more energy it has when it wakes up to flower.

The feijoa is incredibly resistant to pests in these regions, often requiring zero pesticides, making it a dream crop for organic farmers in the Mediterranean basin.

You will also find pockets of production in Sicily, Italy, and the South of France. The French call it Goyavier du Brésil. In these areas, it is often grown purely as an ornamental for its stunning red-and-white edible flowers, with the fruit being a happy accident. I sell the flowers to local high-end restaurants for $0.50 a bloom—they taste like cotton candy and cinnamon.

Colombia: The High-Altitude Exception

Wait, isn’t Colombia tropical? Yes, but altitude changes everything. In the Colombian Andes, feijoas grow at elevations exceeding 6,000 feet. The temperature there stays a constant 60°F to 70°F year-round. This unique climate allows Colombian growers to induce flowering and fruiting almost continuously throughout the year.

It’s fascinating to see how the plant adapts. In San Diego, I get one main crop in autumn. In Colombia, with careful pruning and water management, they can stagger harvests. It acts almost like a perpetual motion machine of fruit production. This demonstrates that the feijoa doesn’t care about latitude; it cares about temperature stability and cool accumulation.

What We Can Learn from Global Growers

We can steal techniques from every one of these countries to improve our backyard harvests. I’ve consolidated the best practices I’ve learned from studying these regions into a checklist for my own farm:

1. The New Zealand Prune: Open the center of the bush to let light in. Birds (and bees here) need access to the inner flowers for pollination.
2. The Colombian Mulch: Maintain a thick 4-inch layer of organic mulch to keep root temperatures stable and cool, mimicking high-altitude soil conditions.
3. The Uruguayan Chill: Ensure the plant is in the coldest part of your yard (bottom of a slope) to maximize winter chill accumulation without freezing it.
4. The Californian Shade: Protect the root zone from direct sun exposure using ground cover or low-growing companion plants.

Pro Tip: Hand-pollination is the secret weapon. I use a small paintbrush to move pollen between bushes, which increases fruit set by nearly 40% compared to relying on insects alone.

Varieties to Look For

If you are inspired to grow these, don’t just buy a plant labeled “Pineapple Guava.” You want named cultivars that have proven themselves in these specific countries. Here is what I recommend based on my trials:

• Apollo (New Zealand): Large, oval, excellent flavor. Self-fertile but crops better with friends.
• Mammoth (New Zealand): Huge fruit, softer flesh, needs a pollinator.
• Trask (USA/California): Developed by the Trask family in California, smooth skin, excellent for our climate.
• Nazemetz (USA/California): Sweet, non-gritty pulp, resists browning when cut.

Never plant feijoas in heavy clay soil without amending it first. They are susceptible to Phytophthora root rot if their feet stay wet for too long.

Through our work with Exotic Fruits and Vegetables farm, we emphasize that soil preparation is 90% of the battle. We cultivate our beds with 30% perlite and sand mixed into the native loam to ensure rapid drainage. Think of the soil as the lungs of the plant; if it’s waterlogged, the plant suffocates.

Bringing It Home

So, what’s the real secret to success with this fruit? It’s patience and observation. Growing Feijoa sellowiana is a long game. It might take 3 to 5 years for a seedling to fruit, or 2 years for a grafted variety. But when that first fruit drops—and remember, you never pick a feijoa, you wait for it to fall to the ground to ensure peak sugar content—it is worth every second of the wait.

I recently harvested 47 pounds from just three mature bushes this past November. My kitchen looked like a feijoa factory, churning out jams, chutneys, and crumbles. Whether you are in New Zealand, the mountains of Colombia, or right here in San Diego, this plant connects us through a shared love of that unique, complex flavor profile. It’s a taste of the wild highlands, tamed for our backyards.