How do you plant longan (guiyuan) seeds so they sprout, and will they bear fruit?
Longan, also known as guiyuan, is a memory-enhancing fruit. It is widely cultivated from southwestern to southeastern China, with Guangdong having the most extensive cultivation. So how do you plant its seeds? How do you get them to sprout? Will they bear fruit? It is understood that longan trees grown from seed will also bear fruit, but compared with grafted seedlings, fruiting is delayed by three to four years, and the quality is not necessarily good. Because seed propagation produces great variation and the fruiting period comes relatively late, seedling trees are generally not used in commercial cultivation; grafted seedlings are mostly used. Its seed planting is generally done in pots.
How do longan (guiyuan) seeds sprout? How do you plant them?
1. After eating the flesh, remove the flesh and white soft tissue from the top end of the pit completely, otherwise it will easily attract insects later;
2. Soak the longan seeds in water, just enough to submerge them, and change the water every day until there are no impurities. After soaking for 4~6 days, the shell will crack slightly, and the sprouting point (the white part after cracking) can be seen, and then they can be planted. After the shell cracks, soak for another 2~3 days to speed up the emergence of new sprouts.
3. Choose a suitable pot without drainage holes, put in sterile potting soil to about eight-tenths full, and spray some water so the surface soil feels moist. Lay the seeds over the surface one next to another without any spacing. Select seeds with a similar degree of cracking and plant them in the same pot, so germination will be more consistent. Use some potting soil to fill the gaps and cover the seeds, then cover the surface with maifan stone or other small gravel. After covering, press the surface lightly with your palm to make the seeds more stable, then use a sprayer to spray back and forth three rounds, and remember to spray water once a day.
4. Next, just wait for germination; after about 8~10 days all the new sprouts will have emerged.
Appendix: Cultivation methods for longan (guiyuan)
1. For spring planting, plant in February to March; for winter planting, plant in late October. For planting density, a row spacing of 16m and a plant spacing of 4.5m can be used, planting 19~20 trees per mu. Before planting, first dig a planting hole 1m deep and wide, apply river mud at the bottom. For field soil and burned soil, apply decomposed compost, superphosphate and plant ash on top, all mixed with the surface soil. After planting, water thoroughly first, cover with fine soil after watering, and then water 1~2 times a day. As for planting depth, the root crown should be level with the ground.
2. Use natural round-headed training. In the 2nd~3rd year after planting, set the trunk at 1.2~1.3m above the ground, and within 3~4 years develop 5~7 main branches, and finally remove the central leader. Prune 3 times a year. The first pruning is at the flower spike stage, mainly removing diseased spikes, shaded branches and obstructing branches. The second is at harvest, mainly removing short fruiting branches, water sprouts, diseased branches, dead branches and shaded branches. The third is in winter, mainly removing shaded branches, dead branches and diseased branches.
3. Apply base fertilizer once a year and topdress 3~4 times. The first topdressing is in February to March, applying night soil and ammonium sulfate, etc. The second topdressing is at the young fruit stage after flowers fade, about April to May, mainly applying nitrogen fertilizer, with appropriate phosphorus and potassium fertilizer. The third topdressing is from late June to early July, mainly phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, followed by nitrogen fertilizer. The fourth topdressing is when the fruit is nearly ripe, still mainly nitrogen fertilizer. The fertilization method is to dig a ditch 30cm from the trunk and apply it there. When fertilizing, intertillage, weeding, earthing up and irrigation/drainage can be carried out at the same time.
4. Pest and disease control. Insect pests include litchi stink bug, tea-colored scarab, small gray butterfly, tussock moth, longhorn beetle, longan trunk borer, rear yellow leaf roller, and longan bagworm: diseases include witches' broom, lichen and rubber disease, and attention should be paid to their control.