The Latest Tutorial on High-Yield Cultivation Techniques for Feizixiao Lychee

Feizixiao is a variety of lychee, also known by the aliases Luotangpu and Yuhebao. The late Tang dynasty poet Du Mu wrote: “A galloping horse raises dust, the consort smiles, and no one knows it is the lychees that are coming.” This is how the Feizixiao variety got its name. This variety has large fruit, thick flesh, beautiful color, small seeds, and a sweet taste, with excellent quality and flavor. In Guangdong and other regions, this variety is one of the mid-to-early maturing high-quality varieties.

Variety Characteristics

Feizixiao lychee originally was an old variety from the Guangdong area (called old Feizixiao), and it commonly had shortcomings such as low and unstable yield and poor stress resistance. The Feizixiao we are now actively promoting is a variety selected and bred from excellent individual mother trees through more than ten years of production and scientific research practice by the Guangdong Lychee Science Popularization Base (called new Feizixiao). This variety has excellent qualities such as early fruiting, high yield, good yield stability, superior quality, and high economic benefit, and it is currently the lychee variety with the greatest development potential in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and other places. Its main characteristics:

1. Growth Characteristics

① Vigorous and robust growth, with an open canopy, coarse and long branches, and strong upright growth.

② Well-developed taproot and an extensive root system.

③ Leaves are long elliptical; under conditions of sufficient fertilizer and water, young trees can flush 6-7 times per year.

④ Large inflorescences, long flowering branches, and abundant flowers.

2. Fruiting Characteristics

① Early fruiting; generally planted in the third year (small seedlings) and bearing fruit, it can begin production 4-5 years earlier than the existing local Wuye and Lanzhu varieties.

② High yield; throughout the flowering period there are 3-4 rounds of female flowers, and the number of female flowers generally accounts for 30-40% of the total flowers; it is relatively able to adapt to adverse climate, with a high fruit-setting rate. According to data from the Guangdong Lychee Science Popularization Base, planted in May 1987 and beginning production in 1989, from 1989-1993 the five-year average annual yield per mu reached more than 863 kg, and it achieved high and stable yields year after year.

③ Excellent quality; large fruit and small seeds, thick and crisp flesh, with a clean sweet taste, and an edible rate of 76.4-80%.

④ Good price; the general market price is 2-3 times higher than that of other lychee varieties.

⑤ Easy to manage; through cultivation techniques such as dwarfing, close planting, and retractive pruning, plant height is generally controlled at about 2.5 m, which facilitates the daily management of lychee trees and also reduces production costs.

Promoting Shoots and Controlling Shoots

Promoting shoots and controlling shoots means promoting autumn shoots and controlling winter shoots. Because Feizixiao lychee has a well-developed root system and grows vigorously, it can flush 5-6 times per year. Generally, 15-20 days after fruit harvest, retractive pruning is carried out by 30-50 cm; after retraction, if fertilizer and water are sufficient, it can generally flush two rounds of shoots, with the last autumn shoot emerging from late September to early October. By late October to early November it matures; such autumn shoots, used as the fruiting mother branches for the next year, have a high flowering rate and are the foundation for high yield.

1. Girdling to Control Shoots

① Girdling time: after retractive pruning, shoot emergence is generally relatively uniform and neat. For the few shoots that emerge earlier or later and are not uniform, manual bud removal can be used to control them. When the second autumn shoot emerges from late September to early October and becomes fully mature from late October to early November, girdling can be carried out in batches.

② Girdling tool: this experimental base uses a carpenter's knife (paper-cutting knife), with part of the tip of a new knife ground off.

③ Girdling method: generally, a relatively straight and flat part is selected on the main trunk 20-30 cm above the ground and girdled in a complete ring. The girdling depth should be controlled between the bark and the phloem, without damaging the xylem of the trunk.

2. Chemical Control of Shoots

① Spraying time: the spraying time is the same as the girdling time, carried out when the second autumn shoot is fully mature.

② Chemical varieties: the more commonly used chemicals include ethephon and paclobutrazol, and the dosage should be determined according to tree growth conditions and the weather and temperature at the time of spraying. According to comparative trials at the base, in dwarfed and closely planted orchards, chemical shoot control is not as effective as manual girdling for shoot control.

Promoting Flowers and Preserving Fruit

1. Delaying the Flowering Period and Improving Quality

Through several years of production and scientific research practice, the second batch of flowers gives the highest fruit-setting rate for young Feizixiao lychee. Therefore, when the first flower spike emerges in early February, all of it is removed, which can delay the flowering period, shorten the inflorescence length, and increase the proportion of female flowers. For example: after the second flower spike emerges from late February to early March, excessive inflorescences are thinned and the flower spikes are cut back (generally leaving 15×15 cm), in order to reduce nutrient consumption of the tree and improve flower spike quality.

2. Focusing on the Flowering Period and Improving the Fruit-Setting Rate

If the climate during the flowering period is normal, when the inflorescences are in full bloom in mid-April, the second batch of flowers is the most ideal; if adverse climate factors (such as excessive rain, high humidity, excessively high or low temperatures, etc.) cause the fruit-setting rate to be very low, then to have a certain yield that year, the key is to focus on the third and fourth batches of flowers. The Shambian experimental orchard encountered this situation during the 2000 flowering period, and its main measures were: ① timely disinfection and sterilization to reduce sources of disease; ② combining aboveground and belowground fertilizer application, because after blooming two rounds of mother flowers the tree has already consumed a large amount of nutrients, so tree nutrient regulation must be carried out, adopting heavy application of compound fertilizer to the soil and spraying the tree with fast-acting foliar fertilizers such as plant nutrient solution, to promote the third and fourth batches of flowers to open from late April to early May; the fruit-setting rate of this batch of flowers can still reach more than 80%, laying the foundation for stable and high yield that year.

Placing Bees in the Orchard

Lychee is an insect-pollinated plant and mainly relies on bees for pollination. During the flowering period, placing 2-3 boxes of bees per mu can play a very good role in promoting an increase in the lychee fruit-setting rate.