Author Topic: Emperor Lychee Preferred Soil?  (Read 2560 times)

Cookie Monster

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Emperor Lychee Preferred Soil?
« on: September 18, 2014, 07:27:37 PM »
Anybody know what's lacking in Broward / Dade soils that leads to poor condition of emperor lychee trees? I've seen the same thing in many different soils -- all in-ground emperor lychee trees do horribly.

Mine was growing exceptionally well and beautifully for many years in a 15 gal pot (mixture of black kow, peat, perlite, sand). As soon as I dropped it into the ground, the decline started.

Do they need acid soil? Anybody know?
Jeff  :-)

bradflorida

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Re: Emperor Lychee Preferred Soil?
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2014, 07:49:12 PM »
They grow well on Pine Island (cape coral) and my three trees have done well for the past year planted in the ground in Sarasota.   We just have Sandy soil with higher pH. 
Brad

davidgarcia899

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Re: Emperor Lychee Preferred Soil?
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2014, 08:00:01 PM »
I'm not sure what it is Jeff, I think its the limestone though.

That said, I tried everything with mine, christmas tree mulch, sulfur pellets, chelated everything. Nothing worked. It didn't die it was just always super yellow. One year it got green, and then back to yellow.

So I axed it.
- David Antonio Garcia

cbss_daviefl

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Re: Emperor Lychee Preferred Soil?
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2014, 08:15:40 PM »
Based on UofF, acid sands with moderate organic matter.  I have read or heard(can remember the source) that muck soils may be beneficial to them while a detriment to other varieties, causing too much vegetative growth.  Mine is doing OK, it is slower than the others and it got chlorosis. I hit it with a chelated iron, manganese, zinc, magnesium drench and it looks decent now.  It is growing in muck with a foot of limestone fill on top.
Brandon

Cookie Monster

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Re: Emperor Lychee Preferred Soil?
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2014, 08:41:54 PM »
Interesting. Harry has muck soil, but while his other lychees look spectacular, the emperor always looks like it's struggling.

Brad, are you sure that you have high ph soil? The soil database shows a lot of sarasota with finely-grained, acid sand with ph numbers in the low 5's. Have you had a soil analysis done? Those ph meters and soil tests from home cheapo and lows are so ridiculously inaccurate as to be completely unusable. I eventually got a nice glass electrode ph meter and sent my soil off to a lab to compare.

Northern Broward and above seems to have neutral to acid soil. I had to import mine (for the new lot) from Delray Beach to get something decent. The ph on my imported soil is neutral, but before they dug it up, the top several inches were a ph of about 6. Unfortunately, the nice acid top portion got mixed with calcium carbonate from below, which raised the phs some, but I'm still happy with a final ph of right around 7.
Jeff  :-)

murahilin

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Re: Emperor Lychee Preferred Soil?
« Reply #5 on: September 18, 2014, 08:55:33 PM »
Maybe you could try an Emperor grafted onto a Brewster seedling or some other cultivar that does well in your soil?

Cookie Monster

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Re: Emperor Lychee Preferred Soil?
« Reply #6 on: September 18, 2014, 09:14:46 PM »
Yah, I actually had grafted a couple onto mauritius. Don't think I have any left. But, since I"m in the process of importing soil, I figure if I can just find out what it needs, I can give him 5 to 7 cubic yards worth of whatever soil it wants and just use the tree I already have.

Maybe you could try an Emperor grafted onto a Brewster seedling or some other cultivar that does well in your soil?
Jeff  :-)