Colorful History Of Tropical Fruit — Lychee

Lychee genome helps scientists dive deeper into the colorful history of radiant and flavorful tropical fruit as per a study at the University at Buffalo, published in Nature Genetics. The study states that lychees were domesticated not just once in ancient times, but independently in two different regions of China.

China has been growing lychees since ancient times, with cultivation records dating back to 2,000 years ago. It was known that fresh lychees were an object of such desire in the Tang Dynasty.

“Lychee is an important tropical agricultural crop in the Sapindaceae (maple and horse chestnut) family, and it is one of the most economically significant fruit crops grown in eastern Asia, especially so to the yearly income of farmers in southern China. By sequencing and analyzing wild and cultivated lychee varieties, we were able to trace the origin and domestication history of lychee. We demonstrated that extremely early- and late-maturing cultivars were derived from independent human domestication events in Yunnan and Hainan, respectively,” says Jianguo Li, PhD, professor in the South China Agricultural University (SCAU) College of Horticulture and a senior author of the study.

Source-Medindia