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Tropical Fruits

Sweetheart lychee lower limbs pruning?

15 years ago

My Sweetheart lychee is sending out a couple of new branches near the base of the stem. It has been growing and I'm not sure if I should trim them off. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Comments (5)

ohiojay
15 years ago
I think this comes down to aesthetics. We all try to obtain some sort of "look" we want our plants to grow into. It's one of the many reasons to prune. The plant is not grafted so there is no concern that it is growth below the graft. I've seen many pics of people's trees that have more of a bush character than tree. I don't see the harm in keeping it on the tree. The more foliage a small tree has at this time, the better. My two cents here. I do notice how your plant has that characteristic "sweep" to one side many air-layered plants have. You may want to prune that part back and find a branch pointing the opposite way and give that a snip as well. This will encourage another flush and hopefully get the plant going in more of a proportional manner. I did this with my young sweetheart and mango. Flushing like crazy. That's four cents now.
bananafan
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks Ohiojay. Your advice is much appreciated because I have absolutely no clue as to what the plant is doing and now I know better. I'm going to trim the plant as per your suggestion. If I don't plant it in the ground this season, I'll place it close to my lychee Mauritius which has been in the ground for a couple of years already. I heard planting lychees in close proximity to one another will promote cross pollination.
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My Mauritius is about 3-4 years old about 5 ft in height. It also gave out a lot of blooms this Spring and some of the blooms even set fruit, but unfortunately before the fruit had a chance to develop, they all dropped off in stages. Now, the tree is going through a growth spurt. It keeps sending out new leaves. I've read some of you here mentioning trimming. Does trimming back help to promote more growth this growing season, or is it more for the next year? So, you trim off a third of all the branches? It must be hard to do so, but if it helps for future growth, I guess it must be done. So, when is a good time to do that? Now or end of the growing season? My Brewster which is about 3-4 ft has been fossilized since more than a year ago. If you haven't seen a lyche statue, I've got one here. No growth, no nothing at all. I heard that they should be protected from wind when young. Unfortunately, this plant has got some beating earlier on because of the spot it's at. Is it too late yet to do something about it and if so, what actions should I take? I bought a sweetheart this year, but haven't decided on a spot for it yet (running out of space). It's about 5 ft tall now. I wonder how long I can keep it in a pot and what kind of care I can give to it? I haven't applied any fert on it yet. If I apply the slow release fert, how often should I give it? Other than it, it seems to be doing fine, sending out some new shoots and the stem is kind of getting lanky and bending over. Would appreciate any suggestions offered.
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I have posted this before, but I'll reiterate here for those may not have seen the other posts. I have purchased Sweetheart trees from Pine Island on three separate occasions. The first two plantings died. The third planting has finally successfully made it into decent sized, should be bearing, trees. They have both bloomed in previous years, but sporadically. The trees have totally different growth habit. The first one has a bushy habit and it bloomed profusely this year. It looked like this in February of this year: The second has a lanky long limbed habit which resembles Hak Ip. It looked like this in February: Based on my observations, I think I have a Sweetheart and a Hak Ip. However, my current opinion of Sweetheart (at least growing at my house on mucky soil) is that it blooms beautifully, sets many, many small fruits and then loses them. That was my experience this year. Now, it was an unprecedented dry period during the blooming and fruit setting this year. I do not ordinarily water my established lychee trees and I have never, ever seen any signs of drought stree on any of my trees. As Sweetheart is a relatively new planting, it is possible that the roots did not exten far enough down to hit the water table and thus dropped its fruit to save itself from the drought stress. I will be monitoring this much more closely next year to see if this is the issue. Clearly, based on the fruit appearance on those fruits that did hold (but were generally smallish and not fully developed) and the growth habit of the tree.....at least one of my trees is not Hak Ip for sure. I am left to conclude that PIN would not have sold me two incorrectly labelled trees. So, I am concuding that this poor producing tree is Sweeheart until proven otherwise. Harry
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gealfonso_yahoo_com
13 years ago
Which Lychee variety will best to plant in south fl. we have a total of 5 acres and how far apart can we plant them

Thank You
Jerry
hmhausman
13 years ago
Jerry:

Your question is very much open to debate. Historically, growers have planted Mauritius as a commercial crop, although some would argue that it will not bring the best dollar profit and may not be the best overall flavored lychee. Brewster is also a past favorite, but tends to be an alternate bearer. Some nurseries are pushing Sweetheart as the culitvar of the future. I have not seen a sufficiently good fruiting pattern to say I agree with them. For my money, I would go with Kaimana...assuming you can find them. I might suggest getting several culitvars and plant them out in sections and thereby you'll hedge your bets. According to the supposed experts, 25-30 feet of spacing is optimum for home gorwing. Grove spacing, obviously could be closer. However, these trees only fruit where the sun hits the foliage, so I wouldn't go less than 20 foot spacing. Good luck. Attached is a link you may find helpful.

Harry

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Lychee in Florida
mango_kush
13 years ago
jerry, visit Going Bananas in Homestead. Don and Katie exclusively grow Mauritius as its the only known reliable lychee producer, the others you have to hope for a good season.

they prune their lychees to about 4 foot every year after harvest. give them a call or email they were happy to show me around their grove

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