Because of their high stopping power and fast and bright scintillation, cerium doped LSO and LYSO crystals have attracted a broad interest in the physics community pursuing precision electromagnetic calorimeter for future high energy physics experiments. Their excellent radiation hardness against gamma-rays, neutrons and charged hadrons also makes them a preferred material for calorimeters to be operated in a severe radiation environment, such as the HL-LHC. An effort was made at SIPAT to grow 25 X{sub 0} (28 cm) long LYSO crystals for high energy physics applications. In this paper, the optical and scintillation properties and its radiation hardness against gamma-ray irradiations up to 1 Mrad are presented for the first 2.5 X 2.5 X 28 cm LYSO sample. An absorption band was found at the seed end of this sample and three other 20 cm long samples, which was traced back to a bad seed crystal used in the corresponding crystal growth process. Significant progresses in optical and scintillation properties were achieved for large size LYSO crystals after eliminating this absorption band.