In November 2015 I planted 30, 3gal. Brewster and 30, 3 gal Mauritius trees. A little more than half have survived. They are all between 3-10 ft mostly about 4ft and bushy. I have never watered them not even when first planted. About every 3-6 mos. I spread about 10lbs of a variety of organic inputs, Biochar, fresh chipped branches and leaves from a variety of trees including legumes, a farm made quality Biodynamic compost, logs from hurricanes, raw horse manure, dried home harvested wood chips. I also spray em1, indigenous microorganism tea and all of the biodynamic sprays, sometimes on a weekly schedule for several mos.. The orchard floor is unmowed perennial grasses, flowering plants, legumes and weeds. Ironically, in July 2018 I had some flowering. About half are pushing flowers now, including the trees that flowered in July. The largest tree is not flowering. I believe this is due to it being planted too closely to a small productive sweet pink tamarind and next to a pond. The mychorrizal fungi in the this largeer lychee trees rhyzosphere is trading with the the tamarind tree for growth promoting nitrogen. Add easy access to water and this tree gets no stress time. The plants that are not flowering are in areas that could barely grow grass more than 5” due to compaction from constant mechanized mowing and the leaching of SOM from heavy rains. These areas have shown to have poor cation exchange capacity, which is a major driver in a soils natural ability to cycle nutrients. I’ve been working on these areas by adding extra organic matter and intercropping but it’s slow process in compacted sand which already has a low cation exchange capacity.
This is in Fl east coast zone 10a.