How many years does it generally take for a goji berry plant to bear fruit?

The goji berry is a plant of the nightshade family used both as a daily food and as medicine, so how many years does it take for goji berries to bear fruit?

I. Basic introduction to the goji berry

The goji berry belongs to the nightshade family, genus Lycium, and is distributed in China, Korea, Japan, Europe and other places. The species of goji berry include Lycium chinense, Lycium barbarum, and others, among which:

1. Lycium chinense is a much-branched shrub, 0.5-1 m tall, reaching more than 2 m when cultivated, with a flowering and fruiting period from June to November.

2. Lycium barbarum is a shrub, or a large shrub when cultivated and shaped by artificial pruning, 0.8-2 m tall, generally flowering and fruiting continuously from May to October, with ripe fruit picked in batches as it matures.

II. How many years does it take for goji berries to bear fruit?

Goji berries generally take 1-3 years to bear fruit. If you plant goji berry seedlings, it takes one year for them to grow into a goji berry tree, and they will only bear fruit in the second year; if the goji berry seedlings are grafted, they can generally bear fruit in the first year, and enter the full fruiting period after 6 years.

III. How to select goji berries

1. Grab a handful of goji berries, cup them in both hands for a while, then bring them close to your nose and smell them. If you can smell a pungent, irritating odor, then they may be goji berries that have been fumigated with sulfur, and you should not buy them;

2. Goji berries are not better the redder they are. Dyed goji berries are red all over, and even the small white dot at the stem end of the fruit is red, whereas normal goji berries are mostly yellow or white at the tip where the stem attaches, so be careful to tell the difference;

3. Up to 85% of Lycium barbarum berries from Ningxia have a white dot at the tip, and 90% of them do not sink when placed in water; whether used for brewing tea or making soup, they float on the surface of the water, and this can also be used to distinguish Ningxia goji berries from other goji berries.