Problems and prospects of lychee cultivation in India

Abstract

Lychee-an evergreen, climate-specific fruit crop, belonging to the family Sapindaceae-stands out as a most promising income source because it supports the livelihood of many small and marginal farmers, especially those residing in Bihar. It has adapted well to the climate in eastern India, that is, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. Because of its excellent quality, pleasant favour, juicy pulp with attractive red colour and additional nutritional qualities, there is an increasing demand for its cultivation and production. The increasing demand for litchi cultivation has raised the standards for its production to be enhanced on a large area, but some major constraints pose great hindrance for its production. Concerns such as productivity losses and genetic parameters are still a threat to lychee cultivation. In addition, there is still a need for developing lines or hybrids with larger fruits, small/chicken-tongued seeds, and tolerance to pericarp splitting and have various maturity groupings. The need of the hour demands designing agro-techniques particularly for source and sink management, micronutrients, post-harvest technology and effective marketing which results in beneficial exchange of information among various countries by which progressive moves can be made for stepping ahead from the limited constraints.