This may or may not be relevant to the discussion regarding the role water plays in fruit production with Jujube. I’m in zone 7A and we generally get good rain in spring and fall with sometimes dry summers. My tigertooth were planted as bare root trees about 5 years ago in full sun but no supplemental water. I have had no real fruit production yet. I thought I saw fruit starting this year but it evidently aborted.
I’ve been taking root cuttings each year and starting new trees in containers. More often than not, these young trees produce fruit in their very first season of life in 1 gallon rootbuilder II root pruning containers. If I keep them a second season in 3 gal RBIIs they fruit even more prolifically. I also cut one off this winter and grafted Admiral Wilkes to it and it too fruited fairly heavily even thought it is only a foot tall. I’m told by a university professor who specializes in Jujube that this is likely because the roots are constricted by the container.
That was all for background. This might be a relevant point. You guys have seen pictures of these containers in other posts. They have holes all around the sides for air pruning. These trees were watered heavily. I used a Rubbermaid tub and filled it with rain water. I would then dunk the pots and allow them to completely saturate with water. Using a 50/50 by volume mix of Promix Bx and mini pine bark nuggets with these containers makes for a very well drained system so I don’t worry at all about too much water, just watering too frequently. I could easily tell when it was time to water based on the weight of the container. In cool weather watering occurred every 4 to 6 days and during the heat of summer as frequently as every other day.
Perhaps the root limitation was the driving factor to make these trees produce fruit so early, but the ample water did not seem to limit it.
From what I’ve seen/heard, it sounds like a lack of rain (rather than too much) and a lack of sun are both limiting factors. In a Youtube video, Roger Meyers described how jujubes would abort when it was hot and windy without any rain. He mentioned that the trees would be fine, but they would drop their fruit.
On the opposite side of things, my tree bears quite a bit on the South side which gets the most sun, but almost nothing on the North, even though the same roots ensure they get roughly equivalent water. It’s possible that people see yields go down over time because lots of water leads to lot’s of growth, which means that any given part of the tree has more shading (making it like the North side of my So tree).
I was about to do the Air-layering method of the wire stated by Alcedo this past Spring but the harsh Winter killed lots of small fruiting branches on my Kakis so I did not try it. Here is Alcedo wire method for stone fruits rooting with a wire.
" it was a challenge and It was purely an experiment Once, someone told me, Peach and Nectas will not multiply by cuttings, It would be an impossible task to do such a thing as an amateur.
Well, from that moment I was triggered. Ultimately I managed to figure out this issue ⦠as in my case sometimes you wrangle up an (alleged) secret.
Before doing the cuttings half woody,green stage cuttings a number of important parameters are there. Of course first of all, a minimum presence of green thumbs is desired.
The beginning:
Choose the most favorable period to start, for me, the most important month of mid July : First start with preparation of your cuttings by girdling. IMO Girdling is the key to success! âÂÂGirdling themâ careful just below a button.
Girdling is performed by a (very) thin iron wire and leave this for a week on your tree, with the aim of stimulat extra Auxin, this natural hormon promotes root formation, at this point of the girdling will appear the roots.
Auxin hormones are up to present.in that time of the year.
Prefer vertical growing water sprouts, These are the very best cuttings because they contain the most natural Auxin content.
The technique is pretty simple even without using a fog machine, room temperature is OK, to prevent dehydration halve the leaves avoid direct sunlight the soil mix should be moderately moist. Keep in mind not wet! a perlite mixture is excellent. Use extra Root hormon, I prefere Clonex.
Within a time frame of just three weeks there was root growth.
This technique was equally successful in both, stone fruits, sweet cherry as well as pitfruits such as apples and pears, maybe even applicable with other ornamental trees or fruit speciesâ¦Perhaps Mangoes?
Since my command of the English language is not up to much, it seems to me very difficult to correctly describe all essential acts in details. I am sorry for that.
My language barrier is the stumbling Block, for truly interested any of you, My concise explanation I have written in a French language
There maybe someone who this French manual would like to translate in English?
I would really appreciate that… For now, at least an impression of my results achieved :
Anyone can ask me by mail
Best regards.
Alcedo.
Jack, BTW. I got one Shanxi Li fruit on a small branch that I grafted two years ago. I was amazed how big the fruit was compare to the normal Li.
Yes, I heard that same thing. I’ve seen claims that lack of fruiting was caused by too little water and too much (don’t have hot dry summers). I don’t know the answer. Just passing on my experience so far as a data point.
Yes that was the technique I was thinking about. It seems to use some of the same principles as the girdling technique described. I wonder if this might be a technique to get Jujube growing on their own roots… Jujube seems to be extremely difficult to start from cuttings like persimmons. It doesn’t sound like anyone has tried this with Jujube.
In my evolved thinking I now feel low humidity is a help to fruit set. I see it on the plums, thats the main difference between my spring and a California spring where some plums set much better. Its somewhat less clear how important the degree of hydration is. Far too little water is obviously a bad thing. I don’t understand a lot of moisture in the roots could be bad, it just doesn’t make sense. Unless it is stimulating the tree to growth too much. Its also clear that a lot of sun is needed. I don’t have a good idea of which is more important, lots of sun or low humidity.
So, my revised title here should be refined to sunny low-humidity conditions, not hot dry summers. I am making a new jujube spot next spring where there is lots of sun, and I will test how well the plants do there compared to where they are now.
I believe Cliff England told me something similar about humidity and how he thought it was related to Jujube fruiting. One of the reasons I started with Tigertooth (aside from the own roots thing) is that it comes from a nursery in Florida and is grown successfully there. While I do get some high humidity in my area, it is not as bad as Florida. However, I’m sure the timing of the humidity is different. Sorry I was unclear on exactly what you meant by “dry”. I thought it referred to both rainfall as well as humidity.
I didn’t really have a clear idea what I meant by dry before, that is why I tried to clarify.
Cliff told me Redlands #4 has been the best for him as far as taste and reliability, so I am going to put that one in my new sunny spot and hope I finally get masses of fruit!
Interestingly enough, Redlands #4 was my first successful graft on to established Tigertooth rootstock in the field two springs ago. I used the bark graft that Yao demonstrates. I’ll be interested to see how that does over time. This spring I successfully grafted another Redlands #4 to my container grown Tigertooth rootstock. Interestingly enough I also had success grafting an Admiral Wilkes scion to my container grown Tigertooth rootstock. The Redlands #4 did not produce fruit in the container, but the Admiral Wilkes produce an abundant amount of fruit. These will both get planted in the field this month.
in my opinion, all the claims that hot dry summers are needed are myths. Hot yes, sunny yes; but irrigation is always needed in Dallas, and in korea, to get decent fruit set.
Bob, I think you’re right regarding sun, north/south side, etc. the commercial orchard I saw in korea had been heavily pruned, (maybe ruthlessly pruned?) and there was lots of sunlight throughout the tree.
Thats what you are going to see in my yard in a few years!
Along with getting a new tree I am going to try to dig up a few of my older ones, they are sort of worthless where they are and if they don’t die completely it will be worth it.
they will drop their fruit when in a really bad case of drought(but first, the fruits will shrivel, apparently channeling the moisture bac to the tree, and will only drop if drought conditions contine, but will regain turgidity when watered in time). In AZ and NV, these conditions are the ‘default settings’ of most yard farmers, and jujus produce extremely well in these areas. As long as the trees get irrigated prior to fruit drop.
My thoughts about induced dehydration with container gardening or deep girdling was simply to simulate dry conditions–letting the tree(or at least the fruiting parts of the tree) dry out in-between waterings, as with certain cacti and citrus. It is a variable that one could experiment on if one is in an area where the ground is very moist, and/or the ambient atmosphere is very humid.
i concur re lac of direct sunlight being a reason for poor production, but i have come across people whose trees get ~6 hrs direct sunlight and still have poor production(in warm areas, jujus will bear plenty even with just 6 hrs sunlight), so only reason i could come up with was that too much water encourages growth, but no fruits. Maybe the lack of extra heat plays a part, but reading through the posts here, i am inclined to agree that it is not the case.
oh well, this thread has gotten really long, but the mystery has yet to be cracked.
pruning advice–and more, from the link below.
folks from ‘down under’ have overtaken us it seems, and have a consensus re the promise of jujus. They sell them there at ~7$ per lb.
also interesting to note the following which i lifted from their studies–
it is true that li breaches 30 brix, and chico is at a ‘miserly’ 25
“Fruit quality testing
Fruit quality of samples of Li, Chico and Suimen fruit grown in York were tested in 2012. Li had the
highest level of total soluble solids (31°Brix) out of the three varieties tested and Chico had the lowest
(25°Brix, Figure 5). Chico fruit had around double the amount of acid as Li and Suimen fruit and
therefore the lowest sugar-acid ratio of the three varieties (Figures 6 and 7).”
About a week ago, I actually hit 32 (top reading on my refractomer) on one of my So. Most are in the 22-27 range, but there are outliers. I want them crisp, so I try to pick them when there is still some yellow (not all brown), rather than getting them as sweet as possible.
really amazing findings, and the contorted is not even the sweetest!
quite sure many of your other jujus will easily top the scales as well, when using the same meter. SC on average is generally sweeter than hj, but hj doesn’t have the subtle bitter taste of sc and contorted.
I haven’t noticed any bitter taste in Sugar Cane or So. Neither of the 2 SC I harvested this year were under 25 brix, so they may be a tad sweeter than So on average. But it’s hard to draw much conclusion from 2 little fruits
I probably don’t get a great yield, but what I do get has been really good.
must be a regional thing, and nice to know the bitter taste seem not expressed in your area. Here, the bitter taste(albeit not unpleasant), is noticeable, especially with contorteds. Dried contorted jujus from our yard taste like hickory-smoked molasses. Or pan-heated brown sugar.
as for your sc’s, that they gave you fruit is all that really matters. Because next year is often a better year with most fruit trees
