Hey Jsvand,

No, I didn't get a single fruit from my Sweetheart last year. I had several blooms, all the flowers opened, and I saw the bees pollinating it, but they all dried up and fell off...:o( Never even saw a fruit form.

pug, I applied some Phosphorous before seeing your message, when the sun in out in the morning. I also sprayed the blooms directly. Fortunately they don't have any sign of drying up. I used 50% less Excel than what lychee online recommended.

share us some of your lychee pics Pug! I hope both of us can taste come fruits this year.

Hi Phase,

I'm glad you don't see any bad effects! Like I said I had no problems with it last year when I used it. I have also sprayed my Mango blooms, and I've not seen any burning...I just wanted to pass on the info that I received from lycheesonline. I'm glad you only used 50% less. You should be fine...

I'll try and post some pictures tomorrow, btw it seems like my Brewster is going through some leaf flush at the same time as blooming. Like a combination of the two?

I hope we get to taste some fruits too :o)

Hi Phase, I just joined this forum and I live in San Diego, CA. I wonder if you live near by? I also have a Sweetheart Lychee and was wondering about the timing on the budding and flowering for here in SoCal. Most the sites like Lycheesonline and Rarefruit growers mentions grwoing conditions in Florida but I would assume our trees lag about 1-2 months behind Florida. Has anyone here actually tasted a real Sweetheart Lychee? The main sites says that the Sweetheart is the finest lychee but I can't google any specifics. Some sites like Pine Island Nursery mention about 3-4 different lychee varieties as being among the finest or excellent tasting. Has anyone here actually compared varieties like Kaimana, No Mai Tzi, Hak IP, Sweetheart, and Emperor varieties? I only have Sweetheart so far but hope to get more varieties but wand to hear from first hand eaters which varieties they prefer. Cheers,
Simon

Hi simon, sorry for late reply. have been really busy. Yes I live in north county. the flower buds of my sweetheart started to emerge in mid Jan (see pic in first post). More than one month after, this is the pic today:

as you can see, no flower has opened yet. Is it a bit too long? Seems that not many people on this forum has tasted sweetheart but they seem to get lots of hype on the internet. No I have not tasted one since this will be its first bloom. I am a little concerned about the pollination right now. Definitely will keep you posted about my lychee.

How big is your tree and do you have a bloom this year?

Hey Phase0001, that is so cool you live nearby. Want to head to Exotica Nursery with me in about 3-4 Months to fianlly try some real Sweetheart Lychees? I really hope you or Exotica's Sweetheart lychees will fruit this year. Steve from Exotica said his Sweethearts fruited last year so that may mean a small or non existant harvest this year.

I'm really surprised at how well your Sweetheart is doing. Its really tall the leaves look really nice. My plant is still really small, and has no bloom spike this year because I kept it in partial shade. I have it in a large container right now at my old house, my family just moved and I am getting married in several months so I'm going to move again. I'm trying to keep it small right now for ease of moving but I've actually had this lychee for a little over a year now.

I knew I was going to have to move last year so I wanted my Sweetheart to put all of its energy into building a strong foundation. I took each branch of my trifurcated (trunk splits into 3 main branches)Sweetheart and tied large rocks to them to weigh it down. I did this to avoid weak, V-shaped crotches. This also caused the main trunk to grow in circumference because all the vertical growth was surpressed. My Sweetheart is now about 4 feet tall and just as wide with perfect thick wide trifurcated branches. With all the care I put into this tree, I would not even sell it for $1,000 seriously.

I don't think I can surpress its growth any longer and think its about to bust out with a super large leaf flush. I will put it in full sun this coming year and let it flower and fruit next year. Hopefully I will have a new house by then and I can finally plant it into the ground.

phase, you should definitely hand pollinate your flowers even if you see bees around. You should also be sure to have innoculated your soil with mycorhizzal fungi. If your tree isn't getting the required nutrients,it can drop its fruit. I remember reading that north tree man fertilizes his flowers several times to ensure good pollination. Don't forget to call me if you do get some flowers to fruit and if they don't fruit, hit me up anyways and we can head to Exotica :)

simon, I did use mycorhizzal last year. I regularly apply organic fertilizer on it. definitely looking forward to head to Exotica for fresh lychee sampling with another enthusiast. When do they start offering sampling and how big are their trees?

I am sure your tree will do great in ground. Looks like you already have lots of experience on how to take good care of the tree. I will try to hand pollinate my flowers even though I have never done this before. what is the easiest way to hand pollinate?

Exotica's largest trees are their Brewster and Mauritius and they are about 25 ft tall for their largest trees. They do have one very large Sweetheart tree about 15 ft tall but someone keeps threatening to buy it. Their No Mai Tsze, sweetheart and I believe a few other varieties are only about 8-10 ft tall. All there trees are about as wide as they are tall.

Exotica has fruit sampling of whatever is in season year round but their Lychees just started blooming so we have at least several months. I found out about Exotica at the end of last years lychee season and there were only several Brewster and Mauritius fruit left. The few fruit that I ate were really good and had only a small speck of a seed.

Have your blooms opened yet? If so, did you get M1's first or females first?

jsvand5, no, not yet. How long did it take yours to open from when the buds appear?

from the look it appears that the first ones to open will be female. according to NTM, sweetheart do not have M1 so I am not expecting them.

did you get your male yet? did you cross pollinate like NTM suggested?

I am wondering about the sweetheart's not having m1's thing. I have a sweetheart purchased from pine island that is loaded with m1's right now. No females so far.

@ phase, Jsvand- I think I need to police my words a bit here. The experiences I've had with sweethearts is what I've only seen myself, and observed from others, that sweethearts only have M2 flowers emerge, but that doesn't mean they'll never have M1's...I'm guessing it stems from the massive number of variables involved with fruit production: Temp., fert., cultivar, PH, light, water, tree maturity, etc, etc, etc. They are lychees after all, and all lychees will have some variation of the three flower types. Sorry for any confusion I've caused with this.

Thanks, you eased my concern. Maybe climate has something to do with which type of flowers bloom? Either way, I am just happy I have some males now. I think many of my female hak ip flowers may have went unfertilized because of no available males. Luckily, there are still quite a few females left, and now it has m1's from the Sweetheart and emperor, and m2's on the hak ip available to pollinate.

Trees are very much influenced by environmental factors, especially the photoperiod and the temperature which in turn can affect the hormones within the tree which triggers flowering and possibly the type of flowers. I'm sure the differnt climates and growing conditons will cause one Sweetheart lychee to have more of one type of flower and another Sweetheart lychee grown somewhere else to have a differnt proportion of flowers such as the differences seen between north tree man and jsvand5.

In any case, it is great that we enthusiats here on this forum are documenting our progress. phase0001, from the looks of the last pics you posted, your Sweetheart lychee flowers should open up really soon. My guess as to why your flowers are taking so long to open is because our weather has been unstable and relatively cold, reaching around 45F inland at night. Your tree may have sensed the cool weather or the low pressure system and is trying to hold its flowers closed so that the pollen won't get washed away and so that the flowers won't get destroyed if it rains.

If you don't see any M1 males, it may be a good idea to head up to Exotica and dust some of their male lychee flower for pollen, you can store the pollen in a closed container in the refrigerator but its best to use it immediately. I have some cryovials you can have if you need a good container. You can also hit me up if you want some help collecting pollen or actually fertilizing your (cross your fingers) females. Woohoo, several more months till lychee season!!!

Simon, that makes sense. It's been a relatively cold Spring here in san diego. thanks for the suggestion to go to Exotica to collect some pollen - that's a brilliant idea. I hope I don't have to go that way though. If I do, I might call you out for help. LOL

here are a few pics just taken.

some of these are ready to pop: M1 or female?

I think those that are just about to open look like they are going to be females.

WOW...great panicles...they are loaded with buds. I see a lot of females popping out. They have the pistil sticking straight out of the bud...males don't have that. Your second and third pics exemplify how tightly clustered those flowers are, and how tough it is to hand pollinate them.

Phase, looks like your tree is loaded with blooms!! I bet you are sooo excited...good luck, hope a lot of them gets pollinated.

I have to hand it to you NTM...you do an awesome job hand pollinating...I tried it with my Pineapple Guava last year and the year before...I guess I just don't have the knack, patience and more importantly the know how, LOL...

After I pruned my dead/damaged limbs on my Brewster Lychee, I noticed some of the blooms that were in the interior survived!! I guess the surrounding canopy did a pretty good job protecting them. The only problem is I don't see any bees out there pollinating, so I probably won't get any fruits out of it. But I'm just excited that they survived and the tree looks like it will recover! The tree is about 25% smaller now...but that's okay. I don't want a HUGE tree anyways...

Keep us updated!

thanks jsvand5, NTM and pug. A compliment from NTM means so much! also you pug, your trees were looking 10 times healthier than mine and I am sure they will have a strong comeback. excellent that some blooms survived on your Brewster. don't you want to hand pollinate them? how about your sweetheart?

I never had any experience on hand-pollination. don't even know how pollen sack looks :(.

Hey Phase, it does look like you have a lot of females. The fat round buds with the pistil sticking out of the center like north tree man said. I hope your Sweetheart begins to open some males soon so you can pollinate without having to collect pollen elsewhere.

I really like what north tree man did, pollinate all the females multiple times to ensure good pollination. This is a good way to ensure you will be able to taste at least some fruit. The tree will naturally drop a lot of its fruit so the more females you are able to pollinate, the better.

I think I remember reading somewhere that the best time to pollinate is early in the morning, probably around the time bees are active. Early in the morning, the humidity is higher and I believe the females pistils are more receptive. I would guess around 7-10am are good times for optimal pollination but I'm sure there is a pretty large window period.

Your bloom spikes look really great and with a little practice pollinating the flowers, I'm sure you will be able to taste some home grown Sweetheart lychees soon. I'm off on Sunday's, so give me a call if you need some help with pollination. I'll email you with my contact info.
Simon

Just noticed that you don't have an email so if you would like some help, feel free to email me for my contact info. Good luck with your Sweetheart Lychees!

Phase,

I tried the hand pollinating thing...didn't work for me
:o( guess I didn't do it right? I think I will just leave the pollinating to mother nature...since I don't know what I'm doing anyway, LOL...
Unless NTM wants to fly to Florida and do it for me??

I haven't seen any blooms on my Sweetheart yet...not sure if I will this year? There are a couple of very "tiny" looking growth buds...very slowly appearing. Too early to tell if they might be flowers or just new growths...either one is fine with me.

Puglvr, my commission would be 40% of the lychee take ;) Otherwise, I'll defer to the bees. Since they're popping around the right time for Spring, you should be just fine.

NTM, Hmmm...40%? Let me think about it, I'll get back to you. Maybe I better take a chance on the bees, lol...

the females are popping now, but no sign of male flowers yet. jsvand5, how long did it take for your Hak Ip's male flowers to appear after the females? couple of weeks?

simon, sent you an email to your gmail address. don't know if you received it.

thanks.

It was only about 4 or 5 days later for my males to open. By that time most of the females were about done though. My sweetheart is probably what pollinated the few Hak Ip flowers that seem to have set fruit. I think I may have maybe 5 hak ip flowers that set fruit. The sweetheart seems to have done much better on setting fruit, but even that does not have as many fruit as I would have hoped. My sweetheart was at least 75% male flowers.

jsvand5, is your Hak Ip still a young tree so that it did not have many flower buds to begin with? thanks for the info.

Hey Phase, I'll go check my email.

The Hak ip is still small, but every branch was loaded with female flowers. It's probably better in the long run that not many flowers were pollinated. Maybe I can get some good size on it for next season.

I am in Northern Cal, the land of "no hope" for Lychee or Longans fruit...
But luckily, i am here to waste my money and time to do the unthinkable.

If anyone heard of anyone in Northern Cal that have fruits, please let me know.

I have a Kohala from FL. still in pot 7 gal.
and now, i am thinking of getting the Mauritius or Brewster, or the Sweetheart.
any advices?

and what month should i expect flower?
i have new growth on my longan tree now, is the flowering
seaon over for it?

I appreciate any help.
Thank you

I envy the guy in San Diego. Good Job.

Hey Phase, I replied to your email. Make sure you get a good brush before you plan on collecting pollen and also for your actual pollination attempt. I like to have several brushes and I also trim my brushes to make a very sharp point so that I can be more accurate when pollinating. The brushes get very moist and sticky like north tree man explained and that is why I like to have multiple brushes. The sooner you collect some pollen and pollinate your females, the better the chance you will have for tasting some of your own lychees.

nomoreidea, your info says you are in zone 10 but if you are in Northern CA, shouldn't you be an 8 or below? If you live in Zone 10, you should be able to grow lychees and expecially longans. There are several people here on this forum that live in zone6-7 adn they were able to get their lychees to actually produce fruit. They did it by purchasing small trees and moving them indoors when it got really cold. The Emperor Variety is good for this. You should check out north tree mans posts, he has lots of good pictures and explanations on how he did everything.

thanks simon. No sign of any male flowers yet. :( Is there such a thing as a female lychee tree?

yes north_tree_man's posts are must-reads. Here are some of his posts for last year's harvest:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tropicalfruits/msg0114493629800.html

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tropicalfruits/msg1213321532371.html

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tropicalfruits/msg062337052718.html

Hey Phase, when I went back to China, my relatives that are still lychee farmers on our ancestrial land explained to me that lychee trees will produce lots of female flowers one year but can change the proportion of male/female flowers the next year. They said they like it when there are more females, likely because there will be a larger crop. They were not worried about pollination because there are acres and acres of lychee trees there.

The easiest thing would be to just collect some pollen from Exotica. Another idea for future flowers is to get another lychee tree, perhaps an Emperor so you have better odds of cross pollination.

Simon, called Exotica about collect some pollen. The staff said owner will return call but he didn't. I will try again later.

Hey Phase, Exotica Nursery is pretty large and they usually only have 2-3 people assisting customers over there. You may want to just head there and make sure that the male flowers are still open. I was there around a month ago and some of their lychees were beginning to flower but others did not even start yet so you should be ok.

The most important thing for you to do right now is to collect the pollen as soon as you can and begin pollinating your females before the window period is over. I should be free this Sunday if you have not collected some pollen yet. Do you still have lots of females and unopened flower spikes?

Simon, the females that started a week ago already have the pistils dried up. But I do still have many females, and the vast majority flowers are unopened. The bad part is, I still cannot identify a single male, absolutely no sign.

thanks again for the info. Unfortunately I can't go there this Sunday. I plan to just head over there Wednesday 4/1. I suppose I can just dust some pollen off the anthers shown below? I suppose the pollen is very tiny and is yellowish? sounds like a stupid question but how much should I collect?

Simon, went to Exotica. Unfortunately the flowers there have not opened yet. Looks like it will take another month before they fully open.

I did have a good time there, they have many mature lychee trees in ground with lots of blooming spikes. many mango trees sending out blooming spikes as well. I was a bit surprised about that since I thought Vista is a bit too cold for Mango trees.

I'm glad you had a good time there but sorry to hear you were unable to collect any pollen. I wonder if you saw the smaller lychee plants, No Mai Tsze and Sweetheart that were on the opposite side of the large Brewster and Mauritius trees?

It was about a month ago when I saw the flowers and there weren't very many flower spikes at that time.

Since you have no pollen, you may want to check out Ong Nursery down in the Claremont/Convoy area. You should also check out any other nurseries that carry Lychee plants in the hopes that some are flowering.

There are tricks you can do to plants that may help/trick it into producing male flowers but its a long shot. You can alter the photo period by putting a brown bag over some of the flowers or by turning on the lights for about 10 minutes at night but these methods can shock your entire plant and you may still not get male flowers. There are also hormone sprays you can spray on your plants, I think Gibberelic acid and some others that can make a female turn male but this is too much trouble.

The best thing to do now is to check other nurseries or to just hope your female will produce males later on. If all fails, there is always next year.

Simon

Simon, I walked around the nursery and checked out every single lychee tree that I can find. I saw the smaller Sweetheart tree, but there are many much larger trees on the other side. Also Leo confirmed that lychee flowers are not ready yet. Guess that's b/c Vista is colder than where I live.

Probably will check out Ong, that's where I got my plant. but that place is too small, and I doubt he has any large lychee trees.

while at Exotica, the lady told me that someone from LA brought fresh lychees from China and those were the best lychees she has ever had "out of this world" that how she put it. She said Steve got a few seeds from that guy. Not sure what cultivar it was. Was that guy you, Simon?

On the tricks do trick it into producing male flowers, I think I will not attempt at this point. it seems a very long shot.

Hey Phase, that guy was not me but she told me the same thing and I was actually looking for Steve last time I went to Exotica to ask him if he ever got Scion wood from those lychees. I'm wondering if those lychees she tasted were Hsiang Lai, Wai Chee, Fei Tsze Siew or Kwa Luk.

Keep in mind that Americans have different taste preferences than most Asians. The No Mai Tsze's that I have tasted were probably my favorite but last year I bought some extremely large lychees from Lucky Seafood in Mira Mesa and they looked very simialar to Emperors but they were super sweet with small seeds and these are a close second.

Even if Steve saved some of the seeds, the Lychees do not grow true to seed and the fruit from those seeds can vary drastically compared to the original fruit the seeds came from.

simon, I went to Ong. They have lots of lychee trees in containers, many of them have blossom spikes and some of the flowers have openned. Unfortunately I only see female flowers too. Wondering if SoCal's weather has anything to do with it. Looks like I have to wait. Today I found a single flower on my tree that do not appear to have a pistil sticking out. It's probably a male? But that's the only one I can find on the entire tree. It's painful to watch the female flowers drying up...

after comparing my sweetheart's flower spikes I found that mines are much more tightly clustered (and the overall spike size is smaller on mine), not sure why.

Are there any other nurseries around here worth checking out?

Hey Phase, our weather down here should have something to do with it. It is still pretty cold at night even though it is Spring already. There is another cold front coming in tomorrow and we should get some more Chill hours as the nightly temps are estimated to go down to around 43F.

Ong Nurseries Hak Ip and their large Kaimana tree that is planted in the ground is starting to flower when I checked them out today so you may get lucky if they have some males developing soon.

If you have just one male flower, the pollen from that male can pollinate hundreds upon hundreds of females as long as you collect the pollen when it is fully ripe but not completely dried out. Just keep your eye on that single male flower and let if fully develope. If you touch the pollen sacs gently with a black card (for contrast) and can see little particles that look like dust on it, then the pollen should be good to go. You want to make sure you don't catch it too late because one strong gust of wind and most of the pollen can be blown away.

I used to go to a place called Pacific Tree Farms around the Chula Vista area but I'm not sure if they are still open or not, I thought I heard people saying it has shut down. There is another place called "California Tropical Fruit Trees but they are only open on Sats from 9am to 4pm or Mon-Fri by appointment only. CTFT's is in the Vista area not too far from Exotica.

Your flower spikes on your tree may be more tightly clustered because your plant is in the ground and pretty healthy because you innoculated with mycorrhizal fungi and we got a good amount of chill hours this year. Longer less dense flower spikes can be caused by low chill hours. With low chill hours the growth begins with some leaves and small flower spikes which grow long but with very few flower buds inbetween. Just my guess :)

hi Simon, unfortunately I think I will be away when the male flower opens, probably in just a few days. How long do the pollen last? I will be back in a week but I am afraid that the pollen does not last that long... I did see a bee today checking out the lychee flowers today - wonder why it was there since right now there is no male flowers. I just hope that some bees will be there to pollinate my tree. fingers crossed...

Hey Phase, I'm not exactly sure how long fresh lychee pollen will last but when I hand pollinated my Cherimoya plants, I recall reading that its best to use the pollen within several days and that it should be refridgerated when not in use.

Bee's and other pollinating insects are highly attracted to the reflective surfaces of many flowers that reflect UV light. The bee may have also been attracted by any nectar from female flowers, not sure if females even have nectar but just a guess.

Perhaps you can get a family member, close friend or nieghbor to help you hand pollinate your lychees?

I just returned from the Spring break vacation. Unfortunately the flower that I thought is male is actually a strange female (will post pics later).

good news is that I now do have some male flowers, although only a 3 or 4 flower pinnacles have males, there are quite some male flowers in one of the flower pinnacles. the best part is, seems that some of the females are pregnant already ... saw a bee again, not sure if it's the wind or bee but I guess it's the bee...

will post an update with pics later, on a separate thread. thanks everyone especially to Simon.

Probably the bees. I had literally hundreds of bees on my small trees when they were in flower. Surprised I did not get stung a few times with all of the time I spent staring at the flowers.

Congratulations phase, I would still hand pollinate to get more fertilized ovaries because Lychees have a lot of fruit drop, check north tree mans post :) At least we know that the Sweethearts tend to start out with majority females and then some males towards the end while some females are still receptive.

I just got an airlayered Mauritius Lychee from FL and it's about a 1/2" dia trunk and about 2.5ft tall ("Y" shape)
it came with the burn tips and it's about a week now but i think it has more and more burn leaves.

The nursery instruction is to leave it in shade for 2-4 weeks before putting into ground which i am doing now.

any suggestion?

And can someone please send or post a close up pictures of the leaves of a Mauritius and a Brewster tree.
I ask for a Mauritius tree but it didnt' came with a name tag, i want to make sure that is what i got.

Many thanks, please post if you have both or one of them so
i can compare to mine.

When it's time to put into the ground, should i mix miraclo grow potting soil and compost with native soil? Should i use chicken/steer manure too?

Should i put it in a half shade half sun spot or full sun.
my ground get pretty dry in the summer?

My small and crazy back yard garden have the following trees:
(1500 sqft of growing space)
Orange
Mandarin orange
Kumquat
Pomegranate
Meyer lemon (original)
lime
5 in 1 Apple
5 in 1 Asian pear
grapes Thompson and concord
and coming soon Muscadine (Big 1-1/2" black grapes 20% sugar content!)
and last but not least
Sugar cane (Black, Blue and Green)
and of course
Longan and Persimmon...
and strawberry and lots of it............

nomoreidea, congratulations on your new lychee tree. not sure how long you should leave it in shade, 2-4 weeks seems enough for me. I'd gradually introduce it to sunlight.

not sure if you can determine the variety just by looking at the leaf. as to the soil, try searching post by north_tree_man since I remember he talked about the soil mix he used.

Lychee needs full sun.

Hi nomoreidea, Welcome to the forum!!

I agree with Phase, introduce it slowly to sun...adding an hour or so each day till its acclimated. Lychees love and need full sun to grow well and fruit. They also require a little more water than say the Mango, especially while they are young and just planted. But remember that it will depend on the type of soil that you have. Ours is mostly sand(FL), so it drains very fast, so I water more often than you will probably need to. Just don't let the soil dry out, keep it a little moist(not soggy)till its established.

You might check out the CA forum and ask if adding to your native soil is recommended?

I don't have Mauritius...but here's a picture of my Brewster...Hope it helps? Not sure if you can tell any differences, but maybe?

Brewster Lychee new growths and some mature...
{{gwi:1304992}}