Do you love lychee or longan? They are both tropical fruits with sweet, floral flavor and thought to be native to tropical Asia and parts of China. Recently, a new hybrid fruit of longan lychee—SZ52 (Chinese: 脆蜜)—was successfully bred by a research team from the South China Agricultural University (SCAU).

SZ52. (Photo: SCAU)

On August 23, a tasting party of SZ52 was held in Conghua District of Guangzhou. Liu Chengming, leader of the research team and a professor of SCAU, attended the ceremony and introduced this new hybrid.

"SZ52 is the fruit of Shixia longan (石硖龙眼) mixed with Ziniangxi lychee (紫娘喜荔枝). It retains much of original advantages of longan and lychee, and has sweet and tender pulp with a sugar content of 20-24 percent," Liu said. "It features strong branch growing ability and is more resistant to low temperature and other complicated planting environments."

Shixia longan (left) and Ziniangxi lychee (right). (Photo: SCAU)

Liu (left) was introducing SZ52 to a reporter (right). (Photo: SCAU)

According to Liu and his team, SZ52 generally matures in mid-to-late August in Guangzhou and surrounding areas. "The SZ52 in our orchard will be mature in about 10 days, and all of them have been pre-purchased," said Liu Ruibo from the Dingshuixi Orchard in Conghua District. He once grafted more than 100 SZ52 trees in the garden.

The flesh of SZ52 is crystal clear. (Photo: SCAU)

The cross-breeding work of Liu Chengming's team on longan and lychee can be traced back to the 1990s. After continuous trial and error, the first batch of intergeneric hybrid seedlings was successfully cultivated in 2007. After years of cultivation experiments, it was not until 2014 that the single plant SZ52 was selected. In 2017, the team began regional trials.

At present, the SZ52 fruits are growing well in Guangdong province's Guangzhou, Chaozhou, Zhanjiang, Qingyuan, Sichuan province's Luzhou and Chonging's Yongchuan.