Cincturing Lychees: In order to stimulate good fruiting on a lychee tree you need to cincture a large limb; not a small branch and the correct time to do this is at the end of summer to early autumn. If you take air layers at this time, they can flower but this is counterproductive to roots forming on the air layers so take these flowers off. The cincturing only affects the limb you are girdling, not the whole tree.
Don’t over-fertilize your lychee in the ground – just give a little and often. The sensitivity of young lychee airlayers to fertilizer isn’t obvious unless you have killed them or somebody has told you about it. I’m not talking about overfertilization, just the same dose we give to everything else, and slow release at that.
Autumn – Fertilise at harvest or before harvest for late varieties. Stop watering once the post harvest flush is developing well. If you have another flush developing in April or early May, prune it off in early-mid May. Prune out crowding branches in May-June (lautumn to early winter) to keep trees open and active. This will encourage bud activity at the right time for heavy, timely flowering.
Watering your Lychee The commercial Lychee growers tell me they had an excellent season – that is, the ones who had water and if you are wondering why the backyarder doesn’t get a good lychee crop, then it’s because the commercial guys pump water to them an hour a day in the lead up to picking!