lycheeeeeeeeeeeeeeees have hit town

[lycheeluva]

finally, my 10 month wait is over and lychees are available once again. today is the first day they have hit the market this year. unusually, it is the brewster variety that has hit town first. usually mauritius comes first. These are from mexico and are marketed under the brand name STA stella. checking out their website, I see they only grow brewster.  hopefully, mexican mauritius will hit town soon.
man these are good. not quite mauritius good bust still damn damn good. right now they are selling for $6 a pound but the price will come down to around $4 a pound pretty soon.

[Jsvand5]

Sounding like you will have better access to lychees this season than people in south fl.

[bsbullie]

Sounding like you will have better access to lychees this season than people in south fl.

We have a lot of Asian markets here in SFla that I am usually able to find them at in addition to any local sources.  I am not that worried about availability, more the price (then again I don't live on a three month lychee diet either).

[emegar]

Hooray for lychees!  I was quite excited to find both lychees and jackfruit in my local asian market the other day.  It took me a good two hours to clean the jackfruit (I clearly need to work on my technique).  I'm not sure what variety of lychees I bought, but they were also from Mexico.  I've found them to be good, but quite variable.  Some are fairly large, some small.  Some have been very sweet, while others are fairly tart, or somewhere in-between.  Seeds seem to mostly be medium to large, though.

[simon_grow]

Mauritius Lychees have hit town(San Diego) at 99 Ranch Market, The Fruit Shop, Mitsuwa Market and Nijiya.  I believe they are from Mexico.  The ones that are larger and more colored actually taste quite good.  Sweet tasting with that bit of Mauritus acidity. 
Simon

[SWRancher]

I have got to go today and check the local Asian markets here for some. 

[Jackfruitwhisperer69]

Hi Lycheeluva,

    you sure are lucky We will only get lychees from June onwards.

[lkailburn]

Haha did you send off some fireworks! Yum

-Luke

[natsgarden123]

Sounding like you will have better access to lychees this season than people in south fl.

We have a lot of Asian markets here in SFla that I am usually able to find them at in addition to any local sources.  I am not that worried about availability, more the price (then again I don't live on a three month lychee diet either).

where do you go?

[fruitlovers]

finally, my 10 month wait is over and lychees are available once again. today is the first day they have hit the market this year. unusually, it is the brewster variety that has hit town first. usually mauritius comes first. These are from mexico and are marketed under the brand name STA stella. checking out their website, I see they only grow brewster.  hopefully, mexican mauritius will hit town soon.
man these are good. not quite mauritius good bust still damn damn good. right now they are selling for $6 a pound but the price will come down to around $4 a pound pretty soon.

I find the first lychees taste best, even if they aren't really the best of quality! It's the effect of lychee yearning for a whole year. Here we already have several varieties available: Brewster, Kaimana, and another one that looks like Bengal (very large seed but very tasty), but not sure. Price ranges from $2.50 to $3.50 a pound. My guess is that it will come down to $2 a pound when there is more of a glut on the market. Trees are heavily laden here this year and fruits came super early.

[Squam256]

Been eating up Hakips and early Mauritius for the last couple days here in PB county.

[lycheeluva]

squam- are the lychees you are eating from florida or mexico?

[Central Floridave]

$6/pound is a pretty good price for New York.  Can you imagine what it takes to get fresh lychee to market there?!? 

Unfortunately none of my lychee are holding fruit this year.   I got good production the past three years, but this  year is an off year.  It is probably due to no freeze for me this year and lychee really like the temp to drop a little below or near 32F to induce flowering.

[lycheeluva]

$6/pound is a pretty good price for New York.  Can you imagine what it takes to get fresh lychee to market there?!? 

Unfortunately none of my lychee are holding fruit this year.   I got good production the past three years, but this  year is an off year.  It is probably due to no freeze for me this year and lychee really like the temp to drop a little below or near 32F to induce flowering.

Central- lychees do need low temps to induce flowering but certainly they dont need temps as low as 32 and lychees will sustain damage at temps below 32. the general consensus is that lychees need temps below 68- personally, i think the temp drop needed is more like 40-50, but not 32. My lychee is fruiting this year ad I bought it indoors once the temps hit below 45.

$6 a pound is ok but the prices here will go down to $3-4 a pound retail in a couple of weeks, and when i buy them by the box (20 pounds) i usually pay $2-3 a pound. you are right, i dont know how the poor lychee farmer makes money on those prices. if the distributor is selling at $2-3 in NY, and he has to pay for the fruit to be trucked up from miami and he is probably not even buying them direct from the farmer. most likely the farmer is only making about $1 a pound. which seems horribly low.

[Central Floridave]

I doubt they are Florida lychee at $1/pound then.  Most likely from Mexico. 

My lychee have gone down to 28F with no burn to them.  And, when it does drop below 32F they flower really good in the spring.    I only saw a low of around 35F this winter and the duration was only a few hours in the morning.   09/10 winter was super cold and we had a week of lows around 29F. I got a ton of fruit after that.  10/11 winter had a few cold snaps below 32F and again my big mauritius fruited a ton. 

My biggest lychee (mauritius) is around 20 feet tall and am in the process of knocking it down to 10 feet  since they didn't flower this spring and it was too tall to harvest.   Plus it is growing into the power lines.   My other lychee are all smaller and are not in full sun so I don't get as much production from them.   But, they weren't always shaded out and about ten years ago I was getting good production out of them.  Since then everything has grown up and over most of my lychee and now they are understory plants (unfortunately)...

[lycheeluva]

central- right now the lychees are mexican. in a couple of weeks the florida crop will hit town. the florida lychees are a little more expensive but not much more

[Central Floridave]

I can only speak for lychee in my yard but I've heard south Florida lychee crop is nil this  year.   Anyone else have any reports?    I wouldn't expect Florida lychee this year and/or very expensive due to supply and demand.   I think this year is a down year for Florida lychee. 

[lycheeluva]

that seems to the the general consensus, though lycheesonline sees to report a decent sweetheart lychee crop

[Central Floridave]

Just checked lychee online...Your Price: $14.00   per pound....wow...

Like I said $6/pound is  great price!   

I'm not getting any lychee this year.  Good news is my longan trees have a lot of developing fruit currently!!!

[SWRancher]

Just checked lychee online...Your Price: $14.00   per pound....wow...

Like I said $6/pound is  great price!   

I'm not getting any lychee this year.  Good news is my longan trees have a lot of developing fruit currently!!!

$14.00 per pound, thats crazy.   

[lycheeluva]

its so funny when i came home and calle d out i had lychees, 3 out of 4 kids came running down the stairs and immediately started digging in. it reminded me of the nature programs where they show you the little cubs going hungry until it rains and then there is plenty and the cubs all get to feast on the plenty

[puglvr1]

its so funny when i came home and calle d out i had lychees, 3 out of 4 kids came running down the stairs and immediately started digging in. it reminded me of the nature programs where they show you the little cubs going hungry until it rains and then there is plenty and the cubs all get to feast on the plenty

Lol...Funny story LL!! Enjoy your lychees!!

Nancy

[fruitlovers]

I doubt they are Florida lychee at $1/pound then.  Most likely from Mexico. 

My lychee have gone down to 28F with no burn to them.  And, when it does drop below 32F they flower really good in the spring.    I only saw a low of around 35F this winter and the duration was only a few hours in the morning.   09/10 winter was super cold and we had a week of lows around 29F. I got a ton of fruit after that.  10/11 winter had a few cold snaps below 32F and again my big mauritius fruited a ton. 

My biggest lychee (mauritius) is around 20 feet tall and am in the process of knocking it down to 10 feet  since they didn't flower this spring and it was too tall to harvest.   Plus it is growing into the power lines.   My other lychee are all smaller and are not in full sun so I don't get as much production from them.   But, they weren't always shaded out and about ten years ago I was getting good production out of them.  Since then everything has grown up and over most of my lychee and now they are understory plants (unfortunately)...

CentralFloridaDave, lycheeluva is right. Lychees don't need temperatures close to freezing to induce flowering. Chill hours for lychees is very different than chill hours for temperate frut. Lychees come from areas in Southern China that rarely ever have a freeze. Actually prolonged freezing temperatures are injurious to the lychee trees. The actual temperatures needed to induce flowering will depend very much on the cultivar. Most chinese cultivars need a certain amount of hours below 55F to have good flowering. Many of the cultivars developed here and other tropical areas don't ever get 55F and still flower. Kaimana is a good example of that. In Thailand also they developed tropical lychee cultvars that will flower even though they never have temperatures below 65F.

[behlgarden]

its so funny when i came home and calle d out i had lychees, 3 out of 4 kids came running down the stairs and immediately started digging in. it reminded me of the nature programs where they show you the little cubs going hungry until it rains and then there is plenty and the cubs all get to feast on the plenty

Lol...Funny story LL!! Enjoy your lychees!!

Nancy

So real. My two boys and wife jump for joy each time I have bag full of lychees. My Boys simply eat them as if it was their dinner, LOL. most that I bring home gets eaten in under 2 days, it be 2lb or 5lb.  Have not bought this year yet, right now diggig into Altufo mangoes and they love them too!

[Squam256]

squam- are the lychees you are eating from florida or mexico?

Florida, Palm Beach county specifically.

The lychee crop failed in most of south Florida this year but seems to have faired slightly better in Palm Beach county.

[Central Floridave]

"Don't need freezing to induce flowering"

I agree. But, they do need some kind of shock.  Either winter drought, or fertilizer, or something.  I believe in tropical Thailand they do something to stress the tree into flowering. 

My observations on my Mauritius is that it responds to temps below 32F by flowering.   I'm sure that temp shocks the tree enough into flowering. 

My tree has gone down to 28F with water freezing under it and has not shown any damage from cold.  However, it is a large tree and I always want it to get nipped back so I don't have to trim it. I'll take photos of it this weekend and show how tall it is.   

I also have the sweetheart, hak ip, emperor, sweet cliff, and brewster variety.   I've tried kaimana but it croaked in the cold.  It was a small tree and had no protection.

The Mauritius has been my best tree and also the oldest and in full sun.  The others are in shade, so thus, less fruit. Which is okay. Eventually something will take out the canopy above it and then it can take over.   LOL...I'm guilty of over planting...

[lkailburn]

Just bought 4lbs at my local Asian market. Ate some on the way home. Yum!

-Luke

[Jackfruitwhisperer69]

Just bought 4lbs at my local Asian market. Ate some on the way home. Yum!

-Luke

You sure know how to rub it in ...

[lycheeluva]

well lychee season has been going here for 2 days so far. have purchased 20 pounds so far and have about 2 pounds left. i ate about 10-12 of the 17 pounds so far. buying another 10 pounds on the way home from work today- unless they have mauritius in which case i may buy 20!

[Central Floridave]

Here is my Mauritius I've been talking about. I'm in the process of knocking it back down to manageable levels. This tree has produced big-time for me that past two years with our super-cold winters.  This year...just a few fruit.   This one fruit happened to be on a limb I cut back. It was premature but tasting good anyways... The tree is apparently hiding some fruit I didn't see until after I started pruning it.

[Central Floridave]

[fruitlovers]

"Don't need freezing to induce flowering"

I agree. But, they do need some kind of shock.  Either winter drought, or fertilizer, or something.  I believe in tropical Thailand they do something to stress the tree into flowering. 

My observations on my Mauritius is that it responds to temps below 32F by flowering.   I'm sure that temp shocks the tree enough into flowering. 

My tree has gone down to 28F with water freezing under it and has not shown any damage from cold.  However, it is a large tree and I always want it to get nipped back so I don't have to trim it. I'll take photos of it this weekend and show how tall it is.   

I also have the sweetheart, hak ip, emperor, sweet cliff, and brewster variety.   I've tried kaimana but it croaked in the cold.  It was a small tree and had no protection.

The Mauritius has been my best tree and also the oldest and in full sun.  The others are in shade, so thus, less fruit. Which is okay. Eventually something will take out the canopy above it and then it can take over.   LOL...I'm guilty of over planting...

Fertilizing lychees will not stress them, quite the opposite. It will induce new foliage flushes which will be counterproductive for fruiting. The something that is done in Thailand that you refer to to induce flowering is probably girdling, also called cincturing. This isn't done only in Thailand, it's done in a lot of tropical locations to help induce stress so that the trees will flower and fruit.

[puglvr1]

Wow...that's a HUGE Tree...How old is it?

[Central Floridave]

Thanks!  It was planted around 1997'ish.   It has been a great supplier for fruit for me.  Its gotten too big now though. I initially planted it in this spot knowing that 1) a tropical storm or freeze would take it out, and/or 2) I would have to cut it back.   

When a tree gets this big it is difficult to harvest the fruit and also birds have easier access to it.  So, down it comes. Hopefully I get fruit off it next year. 

[lkailburn]

Just bought 4lbs at my local Asian market. Ate some on the way home. Yum!

-Luke

You sure know how to rub it in ...

Hehe sorry 
I was shocked to see them here this early in little ol Colorado. But they sure are tasty!

-Luke

[HMHausman]

well lychee season has been going here for 2 days so far. have purchased 20 pounds so far and have about 2 pounds left. i ate about 10-12 of the 17 pounds so far. buying another 10 pounds on the way home from work today- unless they have mauritius in which case i may buy 20!

LOL......what I wonder is how your finger nails and cuticles last through lychee season.  Or are you a biter?

Harry

[lycheeluva]

definitly a biter Harry. That first burst of juice that comes dancing out of the lychee as you bite into it is the best part!