Too much sun for my young lychees?

[Jose Spain]

Hi everyone,

I want to share with you my short experience with lychees. About 40 days ago I planted one Kaimana and one Wae Chee in my garden. Both of them were placed in sunny spots since is known that lychees need sun to grow and yield. Heat has been the usual here at this point of the year, around 84 F, with some days getting up to 90 F. During nights temps drop to 65-70F. They have water almost everyday when is really hot, and every 2-3 days when maximum temps drop to 80 F. Soil have plenty of organic material and both of the trees have mulch. They started to sprout about the same time 1 month ago, but little after started the problems. I have not experience with lychees so at the beginning I thought it was just that they are very slow growers. Days past but new flushes barely grew, and Wae Chee finally gave up and leaves fell:

 


Kaimana kept pushing, but veeeeeery slowly. Branches under shadow seemed to push faster, but as soon as they got out of the protection from old leaves, stopped:




I understood that something was going wrong but I didn't know what could exactly be until I bought two more lychees 3 weeks ago. One of them was a Salathiel, the other a Fei Zhi Siu. Salathiel had mealybug so I took him away and put it in quarantine while treating it. My surprise was enormous when after a very few days the tree was pushing new branches. But it's even bigger now because it's the only one growing normally. Actually for a variety that is famous for being the slowest, is growing great:



So where is the difference between the conditions for Salathiel and for the other 3? In the exposition. Salathiel was placed in the north wall of the house, so it just get sun in the evening, roughly the 3 last hours of sun. It also receive a shower every 2 days from the irrigation system of grass, in the evening (so the drops you can see in the picture). The other 3 receive several hours of direct sun, including the central ones. And not showers. They all have protection from winds, and anyway wind is not being a problem this month, just a gentle breeze. So my conclusion is that they are too small to receive that kind of direct sun at this moment of the year. I set a shading mesh over the Kaimana to avoid direct sun during central hours and moved the FZS (still in its pot) to the same location than the Salathiel.

Now I'm planing to plant them both near to two big trees that I was going to take out but I'm thinking of pruning them as the lychees grow, to provide some shadow the first years. Any thoughts or alternative conclusions/ideas to what I exposed here will be deeply appreciated! 

[achetadomestica]

June 21st the sun is the brightest in the Northern hemisphere. Each day the days are slowly getting shorter and less intense but it is
still close to the peak of brightness. I had similar problems with white sapotes when they were young. I also used  shade cloth until the winter and then I took the cloth off. The trees had turned dark green and as the days got longer and the sun gradually got brighter the trees were able to handle the full sun their second year in the ground. I have got trees in the past from nurseries that were in greenhouses and put them in direct sun and shocked them. I even lost a mysore raspberry one time. Some trees are understory trees and can never handle full sun. Lychee is not and will be fine one day in full sun.

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

are mango trees able to handle the full sun when grown in a lit garage for the first 2 months of their lifetime?

[simon_grow]

Lychees have very sensitive new flushes of leaves that are extremely prone to drying out. High heat combined with low humidity is bad for new leaves, combine wind with this and it gets worse. Once the canopy gets large enough, the outer canopy will partially protect the inner canopies new growth.

Simon

[Jose Spain]

Thank you for your comments Simon and Achetadomestica. I think that I will give them a shower at evening and place the big buckets I use for watering close to the plants. That and shadow should improve conditions, because I see that trees actually want to grow and are happy with soil conditions. So let's give the, a little help and see the results. I'll keep you updated.

[simon_grow]

Lychees love a thick mulch layer extending past the drip zone. This will also help with the humidity. During heavy growth flushes, a little extra Iron is beneficial.

Simon

[Jose Spain]

Lychees love a thick mulch layer extending past the drip zone. This will also help with the humidity. During heavy growth flushes, a little extra Iron is beneficial.

Simon

Thank you once again for the useful tips Simon! I will provide them Fe chelates then.

[achetadomestica]

are mango trees able to handle the full sun when grown in a lit garage for the first 2 months of their lifetime?
[/quote
I would gradually put trees in direct sunlight to avoid shock

[Jose Spain]

are mango trees able to handle the full sun when grown in a lit garage for the first 2 months of their lifetime?

I would gradually put trees in direct sunlight to avoid shock

Yes, if they are placed in shadow, move them first to a place when they get not direct sunlight or they do just in the first or the 2 last hours of the day. Under a tree usually is a good location to get them used to sunlight. Mangoes handle well direct sunlight once they are acclimated.

[AnnonaMangoLord45]

Thank you! Now how many days should I put them under the indirect sunlight?

Also, here are pics of the seedlings, are they suffering any damage?

[SoCal2warm]

It's true that lychee is known to be susceptible to drying out (especially small seedlings), but lychee plants in the ground and kept well watered can take sun. I bought this little guy only 2 feet tall and planted it out in the sun. I was afraid it might get scorched in the heat, but it seems to be making it.



It's mulched around the soil and being kept well watered.

 Southern California

[Jose Spain]

It's true that lychee is known to be susceptible to drying out (especially small seedlings), but lychee plants in the ground and kept well watered can take sun. I bought this little guy only 2 feet tall and planted it out in the sun. I was afraid it might get scorched in the heat, but it seems to be making it.



It's mulched around the soil and being kept well watered.

 Southern California

Yes, actually mine resisted far better the direct sunlight than one mango NDM from the same nurserie, which got some leaves burn after some days in ground. The problem for lychees started with the new growing. For new flushes in such a small tree so many hours of sunlight in the middle of the day are being too much at this point of the summer. After reading Simon it seems that once the canopy is big enough transpiration rises humidity around itself, and tree do just well with direct sunlight. A picture of my Kaimana (the other 3 look more or less the same), it received its frist morning shower  :




 

[andrewq]

Hi everyone,

I want to share with you my short experience with lychees. About 40 days ago I planted one Kaimana and one Wae Chee in my garden. Both of them were placed in sunny spots since is known that lychees need sun to grow and yield. Heat has been the usual here at this point of the year, around 84 F, with some days getting up to 90 F. During nights temps drop to 65-70F. They have water almost everyday when is really hot, and every 2-3 days when maximum temps drop to 80 F. Soil have plenty of organic material and both of the trees have mulch. They started to sprout about the same time 1 month ago, but little after started the problems. I have not experience with lychees so at the beginning I thought it was just that they are very slow growers. Days past but new flushes barely grew, and Wae Chee finally gave up and leaves fell:

 


Kaimana kept pushing, but veeeeeery slowly. Branches under shadow seemed to push faster, but as soon as they got out of the protection from old leaves, stopped:




I understood that something was going wrong but I didn't know what could exactly be until I bought two more lychees 3 weeks ago. One of them was a Salathiel, the other a Fei Zhi Siu. Salathiel had mealybug so I took him away and put it in quarantine while treating it. My surprise was enormous when after a very few days the tree was pushing new branches. But it's even bigger now because it's the only one growing normally. Actually for a variety that is famous for being the slowest, is growing great:



So where is the difference between the conditions for Salathiel and for the other 3? In the exposition. Salathiel was placed in the north wall of the house, so it just get sun in the evening, roughly the 3 last hours of sun. It also receive a shower every 2 days from the irrigation system of grass, in the evening (so the drops you can see in the picture). The other 3 receive several hours of direct sun, including the central ones. And not showers. They all have protection from winds, and anyway wind is not being a problem this month, just a gentle breeze. So my conclusion is that they are too small to receive that kind of direct sun at this moment of the year. I set a shading mesh over the Kaimana to avoid direct sun during central hours and moved the FZS (still in its pot) to the same location than the Salathiel.

Now I'm planing to plant them both near to two big trees that I was going to take out but I'm thinking of pruning them as the lychees grow, to provide some shadow the first years. Any thoughts or alternative conclusions/ideas to what I exposed here will be deeply appreciated! 

those picture look similar to what my lychees do after they are replotted. they typically put out less growth the first couple times, also smaller leaves. 

[Jose Spain]

Thank you very much for sharing your experience Andrew, today my lychees look like this:

Kaimana:




FZS:



Salathiel:

[Mike T]

It is odd you have a mix of warm climate and cooler climate varieties and itnwill be interesting to see how FZS handles the brisk weather. if their root systems are good plant all in full sun but with shadecloth shelters in spring or summer and they provide wind protection as well.Remove them in the following spring once it is warm enough.

[andrewq]

It is odd you have a mix of warm climate and cooler climate varieties and itnwill be interesting to see how FZS handles the brisk weather. if their root systems are good plant all in full sun but with shadecloth shelters in spring or summer and they provide wind protection as well.Remove them in the following spring once it is warm enough.

just curious, which varieties are warm and which are cool weather?

[Mike T]

http://rfcarchives.org.au/Next/Fruits/Litchi/LycheeFlowering7-85.htm
http://rfcarchives.org.au/Next/Fruits/Litchi/LycheeVarieties5-83.htm
Early flowerers like it warmer and late ones like it cooler. The hill and water classes is the big division.Look in the other lychee papers where these 2 articles are.

[Jose Spain]

http://rfcarchives.org.au/Next/Fruits/Litchi/LycheeFlowering7-85.htm
http://rfcarchives.org.au/Next/Fruits/Litchi/LycheeVarieties5-83.htm
Early flowerers like it warmer and late ones like it cooler. The hill and water classes is the big division.Look in the other lychee papers where these 2 articles are.

Late ones here in Andalusia are reported to have the following maturation periods: Salathiel from 9/15 to 9/30, Wai Chee from 10/10 to 10/31. Couldn't find these data for FZS and Kaimana. Theoretically late ones are the best for Mediterranean climate (like warmer regions of California and Andalusia). Kaimana and Salathiel should be early/mid season (depending on the source), and I guess that they are expected to produce less out of tropics because too much cold during their early blossom affects the fruit set. Here where I live we have a microclimate and temps don't go below 4ºC in winter and even that figure just happens a couple of hours per day, very few days each winter. so I hope to have some decent harvest some years. With just one tree out of 4 bearing nicely every year I would be happy.

I'm interested in knowing if Kaimana and FZS have similar maturation periods or they don't overlap. Can anybody tell if their maturation periods match/overlap or there is one variety earlier than the other?

[Mike T]

FZS is earlier.

[Jose Spain]

Thank you Mike! Now I know what order to expect.  And are really good news that they don't overlap either, in a perfect year I would have four trees producing lychees at different times, a long perfect season. I'm afraid it won't happen often, if ever, but we'll see 

[ivancu]

Hello try with Caolín , the expensive one without silicato. Dont worry If Your trees turn white.

[boxturtle]

jose your tree looks fine lychee trees can easily handle full sun they actually prefer that.  Unless it's a new airlayer.   But from your picture it looks like minor salt/fertilizer burn or it's just leaves aging.  If you want to move the flush along try fertilizing it but be careful not to over do it. 

[Jose Spain]

Thank you both for the tips. Ivan, which varieties do you grow in Canary?

Boxturtle, yes, old leaves had burn tips, they came like that from nurseries, new grow is OK so far. I fertilised the trees already in the ground with Nutricote (120 days) and added some manure when planting them. Aside from that,  I just give to all of them some Fe 6% EDDHA and a couple of times foliar application of Zn with amino acids on new flushes. And I think that's all I plan to do this year, after reading problems of overfertilisation Nutricote and earthworm humus are the only solid fertilizer I will use with lychees. For the other two in pots after reading your tips in the other post, I'm thinking of repotting them before winter and if I do that I'd use some more Nutricote in the mix for soil. Pots are 14 inches tall and 6 inches wide (about 3 gallons), and roots, specially those from Salathiel, are already showing in the holes:

 




These are roots from Salathiel



But most of the holes don't show anything yet, so I don't know if is better to let them all the winter there, adding some Nutricote now, and move them directly into the ground in early spring, or move them into a new, bigger pot in autumn.

[Mike T]

The original salathiel tree in Australia was found in a cairns backyard and was of unknown origin. It was found that is was much better suited to cooler climates and you will find it much more cold adapted than FZS.

[Jose Spain]

Thanks for the info Mike, so far both FZS and Salathiel are the happiest varieties in my garden, but that's because of the different location. Salathiel actually grew more than any other, which is kind of funny, since I should expect exactly the contrary (aside from Wae Chee). We'll see how they produce when reach the size. Given that winters are milder and milder here due to global warming, who knows which variety will fit better in a couple of decades...