Evaluation location: Puerto Rico, United States
Six lychee cultivars grown on Mollisol and Inceptisol soils were evaluated for 8 years at the Adjuntas Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR-Adjuntas) and La Balear farm, Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, respectively. Before transplanting, the soil was chisel plowed to a depth of about 90 cm. Planting holes of about 1.5-ft deep were dug with an auger connected by a drive shaft to the power-take-off unit of a tractor. On transplanting, each plant received 11 g granular P provided in the form of triple superphosphate. Six-month-old air layered trees of cultivars ‘Brewster’, ‘Bosworth-3’ (‘Kwai May Pink’), ‘Groff’, ‘Mauritius’, ‘Kaimana’, and ‘Salathiel’ were transplanted to the field 13 May 1999 (UPR-Adjuntas) and 3 Apr. 2003 (La Balear farm) and arranged in a randomized complete block design with five replications at each location. Within a replication, plots for each cultivar contained three trees spaced 16 ft apart and 20 ft between adjacent rows (about 336 trees/ha) forming a triangular array. ‘Groff’ and ‘Kaimana’ are seedling selections from developed from ‘Hak Ip’ originating in Hawaii. ‘Brewster’ is a selection from ‘Chen Tze’ introduced to Florida in the early 1900’s from China. ‘Bosworth-3’ also called ‘Kwai May Pink’ is a selection made in Australia whose origin can be traced back to a town called Skekki in Southern China. 'Mauritius’ also called ‘Tai Tso' originated in Southern China. ‘Salathiel’ is an Australian selection of unknown origin.