cold hardiness of pineapple guava from seedling

Hi, Y'all: Newbie hailing from SC. I have a pineapple guava which was producing fruits this fall, and I like the taste and texture. I was trying to multiply by cutting the young branches, dipped in growth hormone then in container filled with water. Did not do well at all. Since I have the seeds from the fruits, I planted the seeds a few weeks ago. Now a couple of seeds have germinated. I heard that some plant seedlings will not come out the same as their parent plants. This has me wondering if the new seedlings will be as cold hardy as their parent plants. I am in zone 8, which is fine for my maturing pineapple guava. Thanks.

I don't know how cold hardy it will be ultimately. I would be more concerned with protecting it now and getting it through this first winter.

Thanks. They are indoor while being germinated. I do not plan on moving them out in the cold till the roots are established next year. The question is : will they be totally different from the parent plant, or will they be in the same group, but a different variety?

They will not be "totally" different but they could still be highly variable from one another. The seeds produced by your plant are comparable to you having children with yourself (if such things were possible). Even though they came from your genetic material alone, the combination of genes could still produce quite a few different results. Only a cutting (or tissue culture) would produce an exact replica of your plant. But there's still a good chance that the seedlings will produce desirable plants. And I don't believe that Feijoa is a shrub that has to be grafted to do well which would be the only other problem with your endeavor.

Okay... Thanks for your reply. I can only wait for a few years to find that out. If they are not as cold hardy, maybe not that long. And if they survive, it will likely enhance the chances of fruiting for all of them. Worth trying, I guess.

Hi, back to the same question for self pollination fruit trees, including my pineapple guava, out of curiosity. I am pretty sure that there are no such guava species around where I live. I actually helped this poor fellow myself with a paint brush this spring to get them setting fruits. So are the offspring genetically different from their parent?

Similar genetics but definitely different. Back to "if you were able to procreate with yourself". Your plant is providing the eggs and pollen in this procreation equation (ha!) so there will be less genetic variability than if you had two different parents. But because of the number of gene combinations that can be made plus dominant and recessive genes combining in different ways you could still produces some noticeable differences in the offspring.

Glad to know that. Now that I have a bunch of offspring germinating, wonder which one is cold hardy. I will have to keep all of them and let the nature decide which one will survive in zone 8 within a year or two. Thanks.