The ‘Longan Season’ is here

The summer of Maoming E-Whites is the season when two Lingnan good fruits of the same Sapindaceae compete for freshness and beauty. At the end of June, the sweetness of lychees still lingered, and another famous fruit player, Longan, quietly set its calendar for its ripening season and landed in the fruit market.

Around the Toad Stone Reservoir in Dianbai District, lush longan trees form a whole area, covering every corner of the mountain. A series of large and round longan trees bend the branches of the longan tree, with yellow brown fruits and green leaves intermingled. Occasionally, the wind blows the branches, and a faint fragrance wafts in the air, as if everywhere is “telling” the “good news” of the longan’s listing.

The Longan Plantation located in Songshan Village Committee of Danchang Town has also been busy in the past few days. More than 10 villagers are busy picking, sorting, basketing, packaging, weighing, and loading… The 120 acre longan orchard is a new attempt by orchard manager Lu Xiaowen after planting lychees. After four years of planting fruit trees, this year marks the first large-scale harvest.

The lychee and longan industries have always been the traditional advantage fruit industries of Dianbai. The implementation plan of Dianbai District for the implementation of the “Ten Million Project” introduced this year proposed that it should continue to optimize and strengthen the litchi and longan industries, focus on the construction of five key litchi and longan production areas in Xiadong, Lintou, Mata, Danchang and Dianhai, and continue to consolidate the foundation of the litchi and longan industry chain by playing the “four cards” of industry, market, science and technology, and culture, and build a cold chain logistics system for storage in Tiantou, Promote the high-quality development of Lingnan characteristic fruit tree industry.

According to reports, the main longan varieties currently cultivated in Dianbai include Chuliang, Shixia, Shuangmamu, Dawuyuan, Gushan No.2, etc. Among them, Chu Liang accounts for about 60%. The longan produced by Dianbai is large and round, with thick, refreshing and sweet flesh, which is deeply loved by consumers, mainly due to the unique geographical environment of the local area. Dianbai has less rainfall in winter and a warm and mild climate throughout the year, which is conducive to the accumulation of nutrients in the forest for flower bud differentiation in the following year. In addition, the Soil structure in Dianbai area is good, loose and breathable, which is suitable for the growth of Changliang longan. Changliang longan is cultivated and propagated generation by generation by means of grafting and looping branches.