Chinese scientists who crossed a lychee with a longan are preparing to test its market release after the first substantial harvest of the high-yield, cold-resistant fruit is expected to ripen next month. The new variety, named “Cuimi”, was bred using the Shixia longan – a popular cultivar in Guangdong province – as its maternal parent and a lychee as its paternal parent, according to the research team. Compared with the Shixia longan, Cuimi delivered about double the yield, was more cold resistant and ripened 15 to 20 days later, the researchers said. According to Liu, these characteristics could help expand longan cultivation areas in China while extending the fruit’s commercial selling season. “The creation of Cuimi is significant for its breakthrough in intergeneric hybridisation, long regarded as a major technical obstacle,” the state-run newspaper Science and Technology Daily said on Monday.