How to Choose Honeysuckle Varieties? A Full Analysis of Seed Selection Techniques
The scientific name of honeysuckle is Lonicera japonica, a semi-evergreen perennial twining vine shrub. It is a commonly used traditional Chinese medicinal herb, known as a natural broad-spectrum antibiotic. At the same time, honeysuckle can also be made into a precious beverage. In recent years, with the expansion of honeysuckle's application fields, its cultivation has moved from extensive management to concentrated operation, from a prostrate growth habit to an upright growth habit, and from one flower harvest per year to four flower harvests per year, greatly increasing yield and significantly improving cultivation benefits. At present, many places are introducing or expanding cultivation, but if variety selection is not taken seriously, the results will be contrary to expectations.
Among traditional Chinese medicinal herbs, honeysuckle is divided into Miyinhua, Dongyinhua and Shanyinhua. Miyinhua is mainly produced in Xinmi, Henan, and is a historically famous brand known both domestically and internationally; Dongyinhua refers to the product from Shandong; Shanyinhua generally refers to the wild yinhua of the southern provinces. The above are not the names of cultivated varieties of honeysuckle, but rather commodity names named after their places of origin.
Historically, honeysuckle was mostly planted on weir paths, beside ditches and on barren hills, in a semi-wild cultivation state, and after long-term natural selection and artificial selection, some local varieties were formed. The cultivated varieties of honeysuckle are divided into the maohua and xianhua types. Among different varieties, there is great variation in stem strength, internode length and yield level. For example, the xianhua type Hongtiaoyinhua grows prostrate, has long internodes and low yield, and can only be harvested once a year, so it is a variety that has been eliminated in production.
The maohua type Damaohua is one of the most excellent varieties successfully promoted in production. The characteristics of Damaohua are: young branches green, internodes short, strong uprightness, obvious main stem, leaves thin, leaves densely covered with hairs, flower buds slightly curved or curved, slightly yellow-green, lip and corolla tube nearly equal, corolla 5-5.5 cm long, sepals ovate-triangular, apex with rough hairs and equal to or longer than the sepal teeth, bracts broadly ovate.
Damaohua has strong uprightness and tolerates pruning. It has the habit of sending out new shoots and flowering multiple times each year. When cultivated in the field, it can grow into a "yinhua tree", with four flower harvests per year, also called "four-season yinhua". In areas below 500 m elevation in the Zhengzhou region, Damaohua begins its first flowering around May 13, and after pruning it flowers again every 35-39 days (average effective accumulated temperature 560°C), continuing until late September. Through experiments, cultivating Damaohua increased yield by 61% compared with mixed varieties. Damaohua grows rapidly. When cultivated on fertile and irrigated land, with 333 plants per mu (spacing 1 m x 2 m), the main stem of a three-year-old plant can reach 3.5 cm in diameter, the crown spread can exceed 1 m, the plant height is 1.3-1.5 m, and the coverage rate reaches more than 80%. It enters the high-yield period in three years, with a dry flower yield of 100-150 kg per mu. It is currently the main cultivated variety.