Photo: Xinhua

A new hybrid litchi tree, cross-bred from litchi and longan, has borne fruit for the first time this year in South China's Guangdong Province, marking the birth of the world's first new variety of its kind, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Developed at the Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, this new variety is the fruit of an intergeneric cross experiment launched in 2015.

Led by researcher Ou Liangxi and his team, scientists selected a late-maturing litchi cultivar as the female parent and a longan cultivar as the male parent. The researchers inactivated lychee pollen and mixed it with longan pollen for pollination, tricking the lychee pistil into mistaking the mixture for its own pollen. This allowed the longan pollen to fertilize the flowers and produce hybrid seeds, per Xinhua.

"This tree is the first among all those hybrid seedlings to yield fruit," said Shi Fachao, a researcher at the institute.

The maiden fruiting has also brought an unexpected pleasant surprise: Fruits ripened in mid-May this year. Compared with conventional early-maturing litchis of the same ripening period, which tend to taste tart and have low sugar content, the offspring of two late-ripening parents turned out to be an early-ripening germplasm, with flesh that is crisp, tender, and sweet, accompanied by a rich aroma. 

It will effectively address the shortage of high-quality early-maturing litchi germplasm resources.

Currently, the new variety is undergoing comparative varietal trials. It is expected to be commercially available in five to six years.

Global Times