Author Topic: Experiment to get lychee to bloom  (Read 3493 times)

C24mccain

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Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« on: January 01, 2019, 12:07:56 PM »
I live in Lakeland Florida, and I'm planning an experiment to get part of my Mauritius lychee tree to bloom. It's is currently flushing vegetation. I was planning on prunning the tall side of the tree back to previous hardened off flush but letting the rest of the tree left alone. I know the tree won't flower this year under the current circumstances. We are currently over 80* during the day and over 60* at night this week. That will end by Saturday and the forecast will switch to around 50-55 at night and 70-75 during the day with a few nights in the 40's. I'm also banking on the last half of January being cooler. Will doing this likely cause a bloom on the side of the tree I prune back 6-12 inches? Will the current heat mess this experiment up and thus I should wait a week after it turns cool to prune? The short side of the tree can grow and catch up. Thoughts? Pics below.





« Last Edit: January 01, 2019, 12:11:33 PM by C24mccain »

pineislander

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2019, 09:15:13 PM »
You might consider cincturing or girdling, at least one branch.
here are some other ideas to complicate things:
http://rfcarchives.org.au/Next/Fruits/Litchi/ForcingLychees1-90.htm

achetadomestica

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #2 on: January 01, 2019, 10:01:40 PM »
Are you giving the lychee tree a 2-3 month dormancy period with little water? I believe this
is the missing ingredient. I read last year about people putting bleach on their longans
and last year I watered 3-4 times a week in October, twice a week in November, and once a week
in December and January and I had two trees filled with longans this year. No Bleach! I also found
a longan tree growing at someone's house and he never waters, fertilizes, or does anthing to his longan tree
and every year it's loaded? This year my Ohia lychee is a little smaller then yours but I am waterig
less now like the longans? The trees need a dormant period and when the winter cold snaps hit the tree will
be fine if it is dormant. If it is flushing new growth it will burn the tree and you may not get fruit that year?
 Now this year my concern is we have had a cool period between the end of November and now including 17
days in the 40s. There is an 80% chance to have an EL Nino year and the last El Nino I got 10 1/2" of rain in January.
If this happens the trees will flower and then if we get hit with a cold night, the fruit could be in jeopardy.
It's always different every year in 9b but I keep hearing people trying to induce flowering of lychee/longans.
Just like the mangos they need a couple months of dormancy especially if there is no chill?
« Last Edit: January 01, 2019, 10:04:57 PM by achetadomestica »

C24mccain

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2019, 05:43:51 AM »
Pineislander: I have read that article and I want to stay away from doing cuts and such on my trees but it's also where I got the idea to prune the flushes.


fruitlovers

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2019, 05:55:02 AM »
Pruning new flushes definitely helps to promote flowering. Prune the flushes as soon as they start forming. There was a research paper published here about this topic. Proven to work.Just work intensive on large trees.
Oscar

C24mccain

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #5 on: January 02, 2019, 05:59:24 AM »
Achetadomestica: I don't water my trees or fertilize (never used fertilizer except micronutrients)anymore now that they are bigger. The entire areas is heavily mulched and we had extreme rain here this year. A couple of weeks ago we got around 6 inches in one day to top off a record breaking year. The tree was hardening off a flush in November which began September early October and near the end of November before the flush was completely hardened off and the cold hit the buds were already opening. Do to the cold we had in December the flush has been slow. This tree has a habit of near non stop growth, it's growing before previous flush completely hardens off. This will be the trees third winter. Even though this tree never seems to go dormant I'm wondering if the buds on previous flushes are considered dormant and thus pruning it back at the right time and cool temps will induce flowers in the section of the tree I prune.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2019, 06:13:19 AM by C24mccain »

C24mccain

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #6 on: January 02, 2019, 06:11:36 AM »
Fruit lovers: as you can see in my pics the flush is well under way. Would a person pinch off brand new flushes even if temps were warm? It probably would of worked had I pinched them back at end of November because most of December was cool here however I wanted to wait because I didn't want the flowers to flush out in early January when it's our highest danger of freeze. Thus I waited till now so when the new buds after pruning develop they will develop in cool temps but won't open up until after the highest chance of freezes is over.

fruitlovers

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2019, 01:46:25 AM »
Fruit lovers: as you can see in my pics the flush is well under way. Would a person pinch off brand new flushes even if temps were warm? It probably would of worked had I pinched them back at end of November because most of December was cool here however I wanted to wait because I didn't want the flowers to flush out in early January when it's our highest danger of freeze. Thus I waited till now so when the new buds after pruning develop they will develop in cool temps but won't open up until after the highest chance of freezes is over.
Yes you can cut the flushes even in warm temperatures, as long as it is still winter time. Remember, we never get cold temperatures in Hawaii, and cutting them off here still helped induce flowering. But the earlier you cut the flushes the better.
Oscar

fruitlovers

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2019, 05:01:05 AM »
Experiment on pruning of new flushes showed that 70 percent of pruned branches flowered, versus 23 percent non non pruned branches:
file:///C:/Users/FRUITL~1/AppData/Local/Temp/4DecemberPruningofVeg-Nagao17-22.pdf
Oscar

C24mccain

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #9 on: January 04, 2019, 07:37:43 AM »
Experiment on pruning of new flushes showed that 70 percent of pruned branches flowered, versus 23 percent non non pruned branches:
file:///C:/Users/FRUITL~1/AppData/Local/Temp/4DecemberPruningofVeg-Nagao17-22.pdf

Tried the link but it says "file not found"...

achetadomestica

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #10 on: January 04, 2019, 05:23:13 PM »
I am curious if you prune now and we have a 25F night in two or four weeks
or even six weeks. It's the beginning of January and we have had 17 nights in the 40s
already. Is winter over or just beginning? 

C24mccain

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #11 on: January 04, 2019, 05:46:26 PM »
I am curious if you prune now and we have a 25F night in two or four weeks
or even six weeks. It's the beginning of January and we have had 17 nights in the 40s
already. Is winter over or just beginning?

Well freeze events alter the scenario from trying to get bloom to trying to save the tree. I have things setup for freeze protection so I'm not to terribly worried in the event of a serious freeze. I'm going to prune on Sunday and we will see how long it takes to the next flush and what that flush is. As for winter I watch and study the forecast closely. So far I'm hearing cooler second half of January and cooler February but the first two weeks of January look good.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2019, 05:52:56 PM by C24mccain »

fruitlovers

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #12 on: January 04, 2019, 05:59:38 PM »
Experiment on pruning of new flushes showed that 70 percent of pruned branches flowered, versus 23 percent non non pruned branches:
file:///C:/Users/FRUITL~1/AppData/Local/Temp/4DecemberPruningofVeg-Nagao17-22.pdf

Tried the link but it says "file not found"...
Go to this page and click the link there for the article pdf file: https://hilo.hawaii.edu/panr/writing.php?id=254
Oscar

fyliu

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #13 on: January 29, 2019, 03:47:04 AM »
Pinching off the late flushes has been used for lychee in China as well.

C24mccain

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #14 on: January 29, 2019, 06:41:12 AM »
I pruned the tree back to old flush three weeks ago and it has been cold ever since. We have had day time highs mostly bin 60's and lows overnight mostly in 40's. The buds are pushing already but so far they look identical to any vegetative flush I've seen. It may be to early to tell. I don't know how easy it should be to tell if the bud will end up being flowers at this early stage. I video recorded the prune and will do some more recording and combine them all into one video once the flush is absolutely clear as to what it is.

achetadomestica

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #15 on: January 29, 2019, 07:44:32 AM »
I pruned the tree back to old flush three weeks ago and it has been cold ever since. We have had day time highs mostly bin 60's and lows overnight mostly in 40's. The buds are pushing already but so far they look identical to any vegetative flush I've seen. It may be to early to tell. I don't know how easy it should be to tell if the bud will end up being flowers at this early stage. I video recorded the prune and will do some more recording and combine them all into one video once the flush is absolutely clear as to what it is.


I'm curious did you get the 5" of rain we enjoyed this past weekend?
It seems like we have had the perfect cool dry Winter and after 2 more days it says
we are going to be 80/60s for 2 weeks? I bet you will see blooms if we indeed warm up.

I was worried last night the forecast called for 40F and at 11:30pm it was already 40F
I hrought some tortoises in the house and put a heater on my 250lb aldabra.
Then I checked at 12:30am and it was 42F. This morning it is 38F and still no frost.
The tortoises would have been ok but better safe then...

WGphil

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #16 on: January 29, 2019, 09:59:58 AM »
I transplanted my Sweetheart Lychee a couple years back

It bloomed last year but only held a handful of fruits

Blooming again so we shall see

We have enough cool weather up here I guess



« Last Edit: January 29, 2019, 02:51:43 PM by WGphil »

C24mccain

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #17 on: January 29, 2019, 01:09:02 PM »
achetadomestica, we got about 3 inches of rain. We have had lots of rain this winter. Our pond level is still very close to overflowing the banks. We were 38* this morning with a few patches of frost on a bunch of leaves I recently put around my peach trees. The forecast is warming up but still looks good for lychee bloom. I think I should no something within two weeks.

WGphil

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #18 on: February 11, 2019, 09:17:09 AM »
Girlfriends lychee just started blooming

She was given a rabbit and she put its cage under the lychee about a year and a half ago

The tree has grown a lot and the leaves are a deeper green and now it’s blooming for first time

The rabbit has an underground den that I thought might damage the tree but it has boomed in size

Cythompson159@yahoo.com

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #19 on: February 12, 2019, 01:28:19 PM »




I just picked this lychee last year from a local nursery. Only got 1 flower and no fruit last year. Planned on planting it around now but is covered in flowers panicales so I will wait to see if it sets fruit. I fed it a heavy dose of morebloom a little more than a month ago and she’s covered in flowers now. My friend has several lychees and said I wouldn’t likely get flowers or fruit this year since it was still quite young. Not sure if the morenloom helped or not.

C24mccain

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #20 on: February 12, 2019, 07:09:12 PM »
I have been video recording the experiment which I think should be complete in March sometime. Interestingly the flush I did not prune eventually turned into bloom as it grew, probably because of three weeks constant cold and rarely getting over 70 degrees. The pruned portion is starting to flush now and it appears to me that it will be bloom.

simon_grow

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Re: Experiment to get lychee to bloom
« Reply #21 on: February 12, 2019, 07:16:55 PM »
You may also want to check this out, if not for this year, maybe next year.
https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2009/may/lychee

Simon