When does goji berry bloom and bear fruit, and in which regions of our country is it mainly distributed?
Goji berry is the collective name people use for commercial goji berries, the plant Lycium barbarum (Ningxia goji), Lycium chinense (Chinese goji) and other species under the genus Lycium. So when does goji berry generally bloom and bear fruit? And in which regions of our country is it mainly distributed?
The first blooming and fruiting of goji berry occurs on branches formed the previous year (locally, branches formed the previous year are customarily called laoyan branches, and the fruit borne on laoyan branches is called laoyan fruit). Buds appear in mid-April (the 10th to the 20th), flowering begins from late April (the 20th to the 30th) to early May (the 1st to the 10th), full bloom occurs in mid-May (the 10th to the 20th), the fruit ripens in mid-June (the 10th to the 20th), and harvesting continues into early July (the 1st to the 10th). The second blooming and fruiting of goji berry occurs on branches that grow in spring; buds appear in early May, full bloom occurs in early June, and the fruit ripens in early July. The third blooming and fruiting of goji berry occurs on branches that grow in autumn. After the laoyan fruit harvest ends, the laoyan branches accumulate nutrients for a period and then grow new branches; buds appear on the new branches in mid-August, flowering occurs in early September, and the fruit ripens in early October.
Distribution regions in China
Lycium chinense (Chinese goji): distributed in Northeast China, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, southern Gansu, as well as the provinces and regions of Southwest, Central South, South China and East China; it is cultivated or has escaped into the wild in Korea, Japan and Europe. It often grows on hillsides, wasteland, hilly land, saline-alkali land, roadsides and beside villages and homes. In our country, besides being widely wild, it is also cultivated in various places for medicinal use, as a vegetable or for landscaping.
Lycium barbarum (Ningxia goji): evolved from wild goji berry in the Northwest region of China, and existing cultivated varieties can still grow wild under suitable conditions. The medicinal goji berry of our country's early period was the product of collecting wild goji berry in the Northwest region, and records of medicinal goji berry already appear in medical books from the Qin and Han dynasties. The famous physician Sun Simiao of the early Tang dynasty said in “Qianjin Yifang”: goji berry “from Ganzhou (present-day Zhangye area of Gansu Province) is the genuine one, and the one with thick, large leaves is the best.” The Northern Song scientist Shen Kuo recorded in “Dream Pool Essays”: “Goji berry, the one growing in the extreme border of Shaanxi, is over one zhang tall, and its sweet flavor is different from that of other places.”
Some other species of the genus Lycium are also often locally called goji berry, such as Lycium yunnanense Kuang or Lycium cylindricum Kuang and other local goji species; because these species have narrow distribution ranges and are not easy to see, the ones encountered more often are still Lycium chinense or Lycium barbarum. Moreover, based on the distribution characteristics of the two kinds of goji berry, a simple judgment can also be made: if found in the eastern, central or southern regions of China, it is basically Lycium chinense or its variety; if found in the Northwest, it is basically Lycium barbarum or its variety.