Seedling Lychee/White Sapote pics
Leaf burn was from being left in the cups for to long. Two or so never got any leaf burn though.
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/GeckoStuff/Lychee.jpg
Here's three White Sapote. The little one on the right came from one of those tiny seeds. Kind of suprised it was fertile. Doesn't grow fast, but seems to shrug off everything.
Guess I should probably start frost protecting this stuff.
The following thread was started by Brian on October 30, 2009 at 12:09 am PST
picture?
The above followup was added by brian on October 30, 2009 at 6:41 pm PST.
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/GeckoStuff/whitesapote.jpg
Sorry here's the white sapote pic link. Not very good pic though.
The above followup was added by Brian on October 30, 2009 at 8:50 pm PST.
Where did you get them, in the supermarket?
You may know that Lychee are most commonly propagated by air layering. This of course means you already have to have access to a large tree with branches to spare!
Although seedling rootsocks have better roots than an air-layer, grafting Lychee is difficult. Like many (sub) tropicals they need proper scion preparation. So I am told, I have never tried grafting them, I have only successfully air-layered in Hawai'i.
Here are some helpful details from Morton (perhaps you will want to try graft them soon, as 1/4 in. dia. seedlings may be more successful!):
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/lychee.html#Propagation
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Propagation
Lychees do not reproduce faithfully from seed, and the choicest have abortive, not viable, seed. Furthermore, lychee seeds remain viable only 4 to 5 days, and seedling trees will not bear until they are 5 to 12, or even 25, years old. For these reasons, seeds are planted mostly for selection and breeding purposes or for rootstock. . .
. . .The air-layered trees will fruit in 2 to 5 years after planting, Professor Groff said that a lychee tree is not in its prime until it is 20 to 40 years old; will continue bearing a good crop for 100 years or longer. One disadvantage of air-layering is that the resultant trees have weak root systems. In China, a crude method of cleft-grafting has long been employed for special purposes, but, generally speaking, the lychee has been considered very difficult to graft. Bark, tongue, cleft, and side-veneer grafting, also chip-and shield-budding, have been tried by various experimenters in Florida, Hawaii, South Africa and elsewhere with varing degrees of success. The lychee is peculiar in that the entire cambium is active only during the earliest phases of secondary growth. The use of very young rootstocks, only 1/4 in (6 mm) in diameter and wrapping the union with strips of vinyl plastic film, have given good results. A 70% success rate has been achieved in splice-grafting in South Africa. Hardened-off, not terminal, wood of young branches 1/4 in (6 mm) thick is first ringed and the bark-ring removed. After a delay of 21 days, the branch is cut off at the ring, defoliated but leaving the base of each petiole, then a slanting cut is made in the rootstock 1 ft (30 cm) above the soil, at the point where it matches the thickness of the graftwood (scion), and retaining as many leaves as possible. The cut is trimmed to a perfectly smooth surface 1 in (2.5 cm) long; the scion is then trimmed to 4 in (10 cm) long, making a slanting cut to match that on the rootstock. The scion should have 2 slightly swollen buds. After joining the scion and the rootstock, the union is wrapped with plastic grafting tape and the scion is completely covered with grafting strips to prevent dehydration. In 6 weeks the buds begin to swell, and the plastic is slit just above the bud to permit sprouting. When the new growth has hardened off, all the grafting tape is removed. The grafting is performed in a moist, warm atmosphere. The grafted plants are maintained in containers for 2 years or more before planting out, and they develop strong taproots.
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Keep planting those seeds!
The above followup was added by JohnValenzuela Novato,CA Sunset 16-17 on October 31, 2009 at 4:32 pm PST.
Just paste the url into the option image box just above the submit button.
The above followup was added by George on November 01, 2009 at 0:58 am PST.
I want to see how many make it though winter. Then I'll think about grafting. I had close to 150 Lychee plants at one point, but summer and neglect weeded out most of them except those. Which I replanted.
Yes they came from supermarket seed.
The White Sapote I picked up from Monterey Market in Berkeley. The Lychee from 3-4 different places although a lot of the survivers come from the same "batch".
The above followup was added by Brian on November 01, 2009 at 11:29 am PST.