60 Years of Litchi Planting by "Niu Ren" in Dongguan, Guangdong Province

Dongguan, Guangdong Province is known as the "hometown of litchi", and Daling Mountain litchi is the representative of Dongguan litchi. Among the many litchi orchards in Daling Mountain, Li Shouhua's Huafeng Orchard is famous.

Li Shouhua, 78, has been growing litchi for nearly 60 years. At the litchi tasting meeting yesterday, half of the 18 varieties came from his orchard.

Li Shouhua's life is quite legendary. Before becoming a litchi fruit farmer, he was a teacher in Dongguan Middle School and the principal of a primary school. In 1981, in order to return to Daling Mountain to grow litchi, he applied to be transferred from Yizhong to teach in Daling Mountain Middle School. In a short period of three years, he made the best demonstration for the local villagers with his achievements, which also led to the upsurge of growing litchi in the whole Daling Mountain.

Middle school teachers go home to contract mountain forests to grow litchi.

If you say that Dongguan litchi "Niu Man", many people recommend Li Shouhua.

Yesterday, the reporter also saw this litchi "Niu Man" at the tasting meeting. At the age of 78, he is still energetic and strong.

When the reporter praised Li Shouhua's figure, he said that he has been growing lychees since he was 20 years old and has been growing lychees for nearly 60 years. He exercises every day and has muscles in his arms.

Li Shouhua has spent most of his life dealing with litchi, but he is not the stereotype of fruit growers with a "low level of education".

Li Shouhua studied in Dongguan Middle School and stayed on after graduation. From 1969 to 1981, he became a teacher in middle school.

Li Shouhua said that he has always had a strong interest in biology and botany and has taught himself a lot of knowledge. In 1981, he made an important decision to transfer back to his hometown in Daling Mountain and contract the mountain forest to grow litchi.

Litchi has been planted on a large scale in Daling Mountain since 1984.

At that time, Daling Mountain was full of barren mountains and mountains. Li Shouhua transferred back to a middle school in Daling Mountain to continue teaching and started growing litchi at the same time. He said that in addition to growing lychees, he also played an exemplary and leading role for local villagers.

Li Shouhua's action really worked. Three years later, the villagers saw that his fruit field had a good harvest, so they joined the ranks of planting litchi one after another, and it was only after that that there was a large-scale planting of litchi in Daling Mountain.

Li Shouhua recalled that a natural village in Daling Mountain once had 10, 000 mu of litchi planting area, but in recent years, due to the development of industry, the litchi planting area is only about 2000 mu.

In 1984, Li Shouhua's school contracted 35 mu of land with the Lianping management area of Daling Mountain and opened the Huafeng Orchard. Up to now, Huafeng Orchard is still one of the most famous orchards in Daling Mountain.

Where there are good varieties, go to find fruit trees

1993 was the year when Li Shouhua and his orchard became famous. He recalled that it was the least litchi production in Dongguan since liberation. At that time, the municipal government came to Hong Kong to attract investment, because it was difficult to buy lychees everywhere, so I found Huafeng Orchard. Li Shouhua sold it to them at a price of 90 yuan per jin at that time.

Since 1984, Huafeng Orchard has devoted 32 years of painstaking efforts to Li Shouhua. In 2010, Li Shouhua was also named as one of the top ten growers by the judges. He has been studying hard, hoping to grow more delicious lychees. Wherever there is a good variety, he will find the tree and take it back to the orchard for grafting.

He now not only teaches his children his skills, but also teaches others unreservedly as long as he "learns lessons".

Li Shouhua's Huafeng Orchard

Cultivate a unique variety "Lingfengnuo"

In Li Shouhua's Huafeng Orchard, there is a unique variety called "Lingfeng Nuo". It has three characteristics: high sweetness, high yield and long fresh-keeping time. It has also sold to 45 yuan per jin this year, which is of great economic value.

Li Shouhua told the reporter the origin of Ling Fengnuo. In 2009, Li Shouhua found a special variety mutated from a mountain branch in his orchard and reported it to the Municipal Litchi Association. after that, graduate students from South China Agricultural University came to the orchard and determined that it was a new high-quality litchi variety after three years of observation.

The name of Ling Fengnuo also adopts Li Shouhua's suggestion. "'Ling' represents the 'Ling' of Daling Mountain, which has local characteristics. 'Feng' is that it is more productive than other varieties, and the word 'waxy' means an excellent variety that tastes like glutinous rice curd."

At present, Ling Fengnuo has also been extended to Guangzhou, Maoming and other places.

Litchi has many allusions.

Have you ever heard of all this?

As the origin of litchi, litchi has been planted in China since ancient times, and some allusions about litchi have been recorded in many books. Among them, du Mu's "riding the concubine of the world of mortals smiles, no one knows it is litchi." And Su Dongpo's "eat 300 lychees a day and grow up to be from Lingnan." These two poems are the most widely circulated. Yesterday, Li Ping not only explained the knowledge of litchi, but also selected several allusions about litchi and put forward his own views.

"eat 300 lychees a day"

It should be "three fires in one sip of litchi".

According to textual research, Su Dongpo was demoted to Lingnan during the reign of Song Zhe Zong Shaosheng, ate litchi for the first time in the second year of Shaosheng, and then mentioned litchi many times in his poems. In the spring at 04:00 at the foot of Luofu Mountain, the red orange and red bayberry is the second new. Eat 300 lychees a day and become Lingnan people.

Li Ping mentioned that "eating 300 lychees a day" is actually Su Dongpo's misreading of Cantonese, which should be "eating three fires of lychees at a time."

Because litchi is sweet and warm, it has the function of tonifying qi and nourishing essence, dispelling cold and running qi. People with yin deficiency, especially those with chronic tonsillitis and pharyngitis, eating more litchi will aggravate the "deficiency fire". Therefore, Cantonese have the saying that "one litchi has three fire".

Litchi eaten by Yang Guifei

How did it get to Chang'an?

The unpreserved litchi has the characteristics of "one-day color change, two-day fragrance change, three-day flavor change, and four-day color and aroma change". It is relatively difficult to keep litchi fresh.

It is rumored that in order to fight for the imperial concubine Yang Guifei in the Tang Dynasty, the Ming Emperor of the Tang Dynasty sent litchi to Chang'an from Liangguang and Fujian (also said to be Sichuan) in Lingnan. Where did they come from and what fresh-keeping methods did they use?

Li Ping said: but from a common sense, Lingnan is thousands of miles away from Chang'an, and no matter how fast the horse is, it is impossible to arrive in one day. Future generations believe that the fresh Li eaten by Yang Guifei was sent to Chang'an by transplanting big trees with fruit.

History says: "the Li with even roots is planted in the utensils, from the south of Chu to the Xiangyang Dan River in the north of Chu, transported to Shangzhou and Qinling, where there is no access to the boat and bow, and the fruit is ripe, picking over the mountains and riding to Hua Qingguan, it can be reached in one day." This inference also proved that litchi was originally a "branch separation".