How to grow Lychee

Where to plant

Lychee does best with a dry, cool but frost-free winter of three to five months, a warm spring at flowering and a hot, humid summer while the fruit grows. It is more cold tolerant than mango but less than sweet orange. Young trees are damaged at 28 to 32°F, and several hours at 24 to 25°F can badly damage or kill large trees.

Plant in full sun in well-drained soil, out of strong wind, which tatters leaves and stunts young trees. Acid sands with moderate organic matter suit it best. On muck soils trees grow leafy and fruit poorly, and on rocky, alkaline soils they need iron and micronutrients.

• Coastal South Florida: the main US lychee area.
• Hawaii: grows outdoors.
• Central Florida: only in the warmest, most protected coastal spots, with frost protection for young trees.
• Elsewhere: lychee needs frost-free conditions and is not practical outdoors.

Choosing a variety

'Mauritius' is the main Florida variety and bears more regularly, cropping well most years; its fruit is more prone to anthracnose. 'Brewster' is the second most grown, with heavy crops in good years but often only one year in three or four. Isolated trees usually set enough fruit, but a second variety can improve fruit set.

Buy an air-layered tree of a named variety. Seedlings do not come true and can take 10 years or more to fruit.

How to plant

1. Choose a healthy tree that is not root bound, and plant in late spring or early summer, or at any time in South Florida if you can water it.
2. Clear a ring of grass 3 to 10 feet across, dig a hole 3 to 4 times wider and 3 times deeper than the pot, and set the tree so the top of the root ball is level with or just above the soil. Plant on a mound where soil stays wet.
3. Water in well and mulch 2 to 6 inches deep, keeping mulch 8 to 12 inches from the trunk. A thin layer of compost from the drip line to within 6 inches of the trunk helps the fine roots.
4. In windy sites, shelter young trees with a windbreak.

Watering and feeding

Water young trees regularly. Established trees are moderately drought tolerant. For better flowering, UF/IFAS advises stopping watering by the end of August and not watering from September until bloom unless there is extreme drought; then water during fruit set through harvest.

Feed young trees every 8 weeks with 1/4 to 1/2 pound of a balanced fertilizer with magnesium. Once trees bear, apply fertilizer only from late February or March into August. Nitrogen from August to early spring stimulates leafy growth and can prevent flowering.

Pruning and care through the year

• Prune right after harvest so new shoots mature before winter. Do not tip prune after August, which can stop flowering the next spring.
• Once trees bear, keep them 10 to 15 feet tall by removing a few upper limbs back to their origin each year.
• Keep lawn sprinklers and heavy lawn fertilizer away from the root zone.
• Check new leaves for the felty, distorted growth of lychee erinose mite, and report suspected cases in Florida to the Division of Plant Industry.

Harvesting

Florida lychees ripen from mid-May to early July, depending on variety. Pick when fruit are plump, sweet and fully colored for the variety; fruit picked early is not sweet and will not improve. Cut the stem several inches behind the cluster.

Eat lychees as soon as possible. They keep 5 to 10 days in plastic bags in the refrigerator and can be frozen whole in the peel.

Propagation and saving seed

Air layering is the usual method in Florida. Never take air layers from a tree with erinose mite, as this spreads the mite to new places.