Advice on growing jujubes and apples (6b)

General Fruit Growing
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Hi everyone! I’ve been reading this forum for a while now and have learned so much already. I finally decided to make an account and create my first post, so hopefully I’m doing this right! Any advice on starting my first fruit trees is greatly appreciated.

I’m located in Eastern MA in a small town and I’m hoping to start adding jujubes and apples to my backyard. They will mostly be on the west facing side, which has a slope. Since this is my first time growing fruit trees, I’m interested in growing relatively low-spray and disease/pest resistant varieties. I’m especially inspired by @mamuang !

Based on my research, it seems like jujubes are pest and disease free, but I may have issues in my region with jujube ripening in time. However, @BobVance seems to have had success. So far, it looks like honey jar and sugar cane are the top varieties for my climate and taste.

Here are some of my questions about jujubes: If I plant one honey jar and one sugar cane, will they flower at the same time for pollination? Have any of you with more experience noticed any pest/disease issues with jujubes? What is the most reputable/reliable place to buy jujube plants?

Now for the apples: I’ve spent far too long reading Scott Smith’s posts :slight_smile: . My neighborhood has bad issues with cedar apple rust and fireblight, so I’m hoping to grow some resistant varieties. So far, I’ve narrowed down the list to the following:

Liberty
William’s Pride
Pristine
Freedom
Priscilla
Sundance
Trent

I was wondering if any of you could offer some observations with these varieties regarding pests, diseases, and overall experience growing these in a similar region. Also, I haven’t gotten a chance to taste many of these, so any insights on flavor and texture are greatly appreciated! Are there any varieties that I have missed? If I have a lot of wild crab apples around, do I have to worry about pollination issues?

I’ve also started reading the Holistic Orchard and I plan to focus on pruning, air flow, and keeping the orchard clean to prevent disease. Does this sound feasible or am I missing something important?

Finally, I have an established wild crab apple on my property already and I was hoping to graft some eating apple scions to it, as scions cost a lot less than trees! Would you recommend this, or am I making a big mistake?

Sorry for all the questions from this complete beginner! I am looking forward to hearing all of your advice and learning from you.

Thank you in advance!

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The flowers on HJ and SC in my 7B zone overlapped, they wake up later than other fruit trees but have very long flowering period.

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Z6b SW PA here. I started with Honey Jar and have grafted Sugar Cane, Autumn Beauty, Massandra, and Black Sea. So far I’ve sampled the former 2 but have fruit on the others this year.

I’m planning to trial others too.

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Where’s in eastern MA that is 5b?

I am in Worcester County with a higher elevation than eastern MA and is already in a 6a zone.

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Hi @mamuang it’s so great to hear from you! I apologize for the mistake, I actually meant to write 6b.

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Hi @Fishsauce, thanks for the insight! It sounds like pollination shouldn’t be an issue then.

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Hi @disc4tw thanks for the reply! How has your experience with jujubes been so far? Have they been easy to grow? Have you had any issues with overwintering?

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That sounds about right.
You can grow any of those jujubes. HJ and SC do have overlapping bloom time.

The problem I have with jujubes is cracking if it rain near ripening time Sept. Both cracked quite noticebly but I can’t recall which one cracked more.

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Thanks for the information. Sounds like I should be able to get pollination then. Are there other jujube varieties that you recommend that don’t crack as much? Also, do you have any recommendations for where to buy jujube trees?

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Nurseries like Red Date Nusery, Trees of Antiquity, Just Fruit and Exotics nursery are a good srart.

@jujubemulberry, @BobVance , @k8tpayaso , @tonyOmahaz5 know a lot more about jujubes than most people here do.

@k8tpayaso sells jujube trees, too.

Wherever you want to buy buy trees from, do not buy them from TyRy Nursery or its affiliates.

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Right now I’m sticking with the known great tasting and crunchy jujube likes on Bob’s @BobVance list. Honey Jar, Black Sea, Sugarcane, Bok Jo, and a few new varieties for trial like Pan Zao, Bing Tang aka Icy Sugar, Baby Red, Second generation Winter Delight, new larger fruit Honey Jar, and Sandia.

Tony

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First tree in ground in 2019; I haven’t sprayed in my location. I have thin leaved mountain mint, spearmint, orange mint, and mojito mint below my tree as pollinator partners. I have more wasps, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators on my tree than I can count, and I think that has a lot to do with fruit set.

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Thanks for the recommendations!

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Hi Tony, thanks for the insight. Honey Jar and Sugarcane seem like winners to me. I haven’t heard as much about Black Sea. How does it compare to HJ and Sugarcane?

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I haven’t thought about pollinator partners yet…looks like another rabbit hole to uncover. Thanks for the advice.

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i’d like to add burntridgenursery as a go-to online juju vendor, and of course concur with @mamuang re: @k8tpayaso being reputable.
and yeah, i agree honey jar and sugarcane are the two most popular that are relatively available :slight_smile:

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thanks for the info! I’ll check out burntridge nursery

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I’m not super impressed with any from that list (and haven’t heard of Trent). But, Sundance and Priscilla are the best. William’s Pride isn’t bad for a summer apple, though summer apples are something which generally aren’t very good. Zestar is one I like.

Personally, apples are just large, low sugar jujubes. As such, they have a lot less interest for me than they used to. And you need to spray for PC, scab, etc. And animals are more interested in swiping apples, than jujubes.

The only apples I still consider worthwhile:
Goldrush- lots of sweet and tart
Golden Russet- high sugar, syrupy
Evercrisp- Great crunch and high sugar
Sweet Sixteen- very unusual flavor, inconsistent production

There are a few others I have and like:
Spitzenberg- reputed to be difficult, but doesn’t seem that different once you are spraying
Winston- good, high flavor, but can be small
Honeycrisp- daughter likes it, but Evercrisp is higher sugar version
Kidds Orange Red- large, productive, good but not shockingly noteworthy flavor
One of the Limbertwigs- not sure which, but I’ve been positively impressed with it
Katherine- only a few so far, but large and good
Zestar- as mentioned above, one of the few good summer apples. Like Honeycrisp, but a less dense, lighter texture.

If I had to compare, I would say that Sundance is a weaker version of Goldrush and Priscilla is a lower flavor (and more productive) version of Sweet Sixteen (a bit of anise flavor in it).

I don’t see why not. Though you should keep in mind it could get big. Rather than trying to graft 20-30 different places on the end of the branch, I’d say just cut it off at 3-4’ and do a couple bark grafts. That is what I did with a number of trees this spring that I wanted to change over.

Here’s an example, with the 2nd pic a closeup of the graft (a double-bark graft).

Evercrisp_topwork_08-05-2024
Evercrisp_topwork_08-05-20241920×2560 493 KB

Evercrisp_double_bark_08-05-2024
Evercrisp_double_bark_08-05-20241920×1440 129 KB

Agreed. JFaE is pricey, but a good option for potted trees. Chinese Red Date (email them now for next spring), Trees of Antiquity, and Grow Organic would be the best choices if you are OK waiting until next spring.

I view them as a middle-of-the-road option. They are a bit lower cost and the trees are OK, but generally aren’t as nice/large as the trees from top-tier options. And size matters for jujubes. At least, outside of the sunny SW.

Agreed- those are the top 4 I would plant now, along with Dong/Sandia to extend the season late. Two others, Early Golden Crispy and Bing Tang would also be on the list, but it would be pretty hard to find them. For that matter, it might be tough to find any of the good ones but Honey Jar and Sugar Cane, unless you go to Chinese Red Date, who also has Black Sea (aka Russia #2) and Dong/Sandia (Sandia is a slightly earlier (1-1.5 weeks) version of Dong).

Kind of. HJ and SC both bloom for several weeks at least and will definitely overlap on the calendar. Jujubes started blooming in June and I still have quite a few with flowers now in August. Jujube pollination can be a bit complicated, as one blooms in the morning and the other in the afternoon. But I think there is enough overlap that you would still get pollination. It won’t hurt to get more varieties too though.

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@BobVance thanks so much for the detailed response! The more I think about it, apples don’t seem to be worth all the struggle compared to jujubes. I would love to grow Goldrush but I’ve heard that it gets CAR really bad.

Maybe I’ll just stick to scions and grafting as a low cost way to get started with apples. Your picture of the bark graft is super helpful!

After reading your post on jujube sources, I plan on ordering from Trees of Antiquity as they seem to have the largest trees. I haven’t heard as much about Chinese Red Date. How is their tree sizing compared to ToA?

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you know what? Just realized–am probably the least credible when it comes to reviewing nurseries selling jujus. Nurseries have been buying from probably have preconceived notions am a “hard-to-please diva” who might give them bad yelp reviews.

which of course i will never do. Actually so thankful and intend send each of them scionwood of new cultivars to diversify and hopefully boost their sales :slight_smile:

also makes me wish Mr Meyer was still alive so can “return him the favor”…

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