Farmer Finally Creates Seedless Lychees After Trying For 19 Years
Everybody knows the hassle of eating lychees — after you get rid of the skin, you’ll still have to spit out the seed. There also isn’t enough of the fruit itself to satisfy cravings because of the large burden seed.
Well, it seems that this problem may soon become a thing of the past. Australian farmer Tibby Dixon has successfully created seedless lychees after attempting for 19 years.
Seedless lychees have slight pineapple flavour
Mr Dixon told ABC that the seedless lychees are “medium-sized… [and] very flavoursome”.
Mr Dixon says that the lychees have a slight pineapple taste to them.
The harvest is not huge — just a few kilograms. However, he prefers focussing on growing the trees to “establish more plants”.
Spent S$6,750 on 1st tree
Mr Dixon spent S$6,750 (USD 5000) on his first lychee tree.
Image for illustration purposes only
Source
Since then, he has been developing different lychee varieties by cross-pollinating flowers and through selective breeding.
For the uninitiated, cross-pollination refers to the process where pollen from a male part of a flower is transferred to the female part of another flower.
Using this method, Mr Dixon eventually developed a variety with a small seed. From there, he continued cross-pollinating and ended up with a variety without a seed.
Seedless lychees not commercially available yet
Sadly, the lychees are not commercially available yet as it is still in its early stages of development.
For now, customers would have to purchase at least 1kg of lychees from Mr Dixon to try the seedless variety.
That said, Mr Dixon says these lychees will be available “in commercial numbers” within a few years.
Hope they’ll come to Singapore soon
Congrats to Mr Dixon on the wonderful discovery.
We have no doubts that it will revolutionise the lychee-eating experience. I mean, who in the right mind would opt for the ‘seed option’ when there are seedless ones available.
Hopefully, the trees will grow well and the seedless lychees will hit the sunny shores of Singapore soon.
