yes, Tim, sour jujube is the rootstoc of choice. Sherwood and silverhill also come with their own roots sometimes, but you have to inquire with the vendor. I actually bought a bunch of fresh sherwood fruit from Shirley(wife of Roger Meyer) just a couple months ago, and will try to germinate those. But from my experience with seeds i obtained from our current trees, li, sugarcane, honeyjar, sour, etc, the sour(semi-wild) variety has the highest rates of germination of about 75%. I feel it would be higher if i had been more gentle with the nutcracer have been using as many of the pips got dinged and dented. Forgot to add, some of the honey jars and sihong sprouted ~10% of them, but forgot to secure them and were summarily devoured by sowbugs. Additionally, the li variety seems to always have almond sized pits, but the pips inside them are often tiny and deformed, and the bigger, 'normal 'ones had never sprouted for me.
actually feel bad you posted this inquiry too late, as i’ve discarded many of the jujube fruits from a wayward-growing sour variety we’ve been studying. Would have volunteered to send the amount you wanted. Could send you some of my sherwood and the last three of the sour pits i could find if you’re interested. A pit is supposed to have two seeds inside, but may also only just have one, or none…
lastly, the sour jujube’s seeds are also tiny, but they are plump and not spindly lie those of the li.
here’s a time-lapse of the few seeds we’ve been experimenting on. They sprout within 5 days, and should give you some idea about their growth rates, judging by the captioned dates. These have not grown really fast as winter is getting nippy, and had to bring them in and placed by a south-side window sill to get some light, hopefully tide them over to spring.
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