Just received my copy of this new book by Rafael, aka Jujubemulberry, from Amazon. Lots of pictures! I’m going to start reading now…
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I’ve read my copy and reread parts of it and used other areas to answer questions or confirm my thoughts. The pictures are fantastic as we would expect from his posts!
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Every time I see jujube I think of the candy of the same name. When I was a kid my friend loved those things and would buy them to eat during a movie when we went to the theater.
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thanks so much!
we’re currently working on our e-book (kindle) version to significantly lower the price. 
Hard copies are so expensive as print-on-demand
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I was happy to see evaluations of all the Roger Meyer varieties. I’ve often wondered if I should have bitten the bullet & bought 1 ea, I’m glad Raf apparently did & reported. Now we know what to think of RT, Morris, Spinosa’s, etc
There’s good info about the best scion wood, I’ll keep that in mind.
I’m going to have to try the Priest variety
For the die hard jujubee growers, a must have book
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i got priest from england’s in 2016. They were laterals which didn’t grow vegetatively, but produced a few fruits which were outstanding, especially since bein recent grafts.
englands might still have bud wood available, and if not, you’ll have ‘first dibs’ next spring
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Why is Sihong so hard to find now? I touched base with the tree place here that advertises it and they still do not have any available. I would still like to have one.
problem with sihong is that it is not as productive as other good varieties, and the chinese name is a little too foreign compared to the sweet-sounding honey jar, sugarcane and the 45 brix ga-866, which we find inferior to sihong when grown here.
similar to sihong is chico which is pretty good, but apparently doesn’t like cold/wet regions with short growing seasons.
At its best Sihong is pretty good here but rarely in the top 10 for fresh fruit. In some years it starts drying before it sweetens up and is not very good for fresh eating. Mine is very productive but the tree is a bit more spread out and takes up more space than any other jujube tree I have. I guess compared to other jujube trees in terms of production per square inch it is a bit less productive, but it’s still very productive compared to most other types of fruit trees. Where Sihong shines is with the dried fruit. I have neighbors and postal workers who will walk right past Sugar Cane, Jin and Li2 trees with fresh fruit and eat the dried Sihong fruit. Sihong is one of the few dried jujubes I will eat. GA 866 is superb when it sweetens up but in many years it never seems to fully ripen/sweeten up.
I came across jujube 20 yars ago studying Chinese medicine (for anxiety and insomnia) and thought one day I’d like to grow one - or not. Our climate is wet (45" rain/yr), humid, moderately warm and close to sea level. Would anyone have a recommedation - even such as ‘don’t even try’, LOL. Or maybe there is a variety that would grow well under these conditions.
“Moderately warm” doesn’t give us much information. People grow jujubes successfully in Florida which is warm, wet and sea level.
Haha. Good to know. I’m in coastal VA so not that warm. Are you saying any will do fine here? They don’t mind occasional wet feet and lots of fungal pressure?
I think those are concerns. Florida jujube growers have some distinct preferences as to which varieties do best there. But I’m in California so I’m not that familiar with them. You might want to talk to the folks at this Florida nursery if you don’t get a response from someone here. http://www.justfruitsandexotics.com/JFE/product-category/fruit-trees/jujuba/
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I get 49" of rain and my trees are healthy and zero maintenance. Fruit set is my biggest issue.
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My Honey Jar graft has not grown much in the last two years, will it start growing with age or will it always be small?
For me in Maryland fruit set has also been the biggest issue. We had a long-running thread here on that topic.
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For Shihong, maybe Just Fruits and Exotics next spring, or maybe Rolling River. I got mine from Roger Myer but he’s passed
Juju,
Does New England qualify for a " cold, wet, short growing season".
I just ordered Chico for this spring. Oh, well!!
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if remember it right, @scottfsmith(or maybe @BobVance) mentioned having talked to Cliff(England) who said that chico never fruited in kentucky, and that they have had their trees for several years.
when we obtained ours 3 or 4 yrs ago, it didn’t fruit as much right away, but precocious enough to fruit on the bare-root. The stems i obtained from it also fruited–but so much more than the bare root source itself, perhaps because i grafted them on vigorous, established trees with plenty of food reserves in their roots.
best options would be to graft them high to get most sun, or graft to a seedling and plant in the sunniest spot of your property
i had that problem with shanxi li and some hj’s, which didn’t grow vegetatively for two to three years. HJ and shanxi were so much in demand that Mr Meyer had to use the less desirable stems(laterals).
sometimes if may just be due to a really old, declining sucker(it is possible, even with jujus!) and all you really need to do is take a segment and graft to a vigorous tree/sucker.
if the graft is actually on a vigorous tree/rootstock, it is likely that you grafted it on to a lateral stem instead of upright growth. You could simply just remove it and graft it to upright stems.
lastly, if not getting enough sun, grafts typically lose apical dominance. And with laterals, it often needs as much light it could get to be metabolically relevant.
lastly, if you don’t want to risk removing the graft, you could simply get rid of all buds and vegetative growth of your tree/rootstock(of course this is advisable only if your tree/rootstoc is small) Also destroy all the buds on the rootstock to ‘reassign’ the apical growth to that sole scion.
that’s the trouble with jujus, but i guess it is the same for other fruits as well, as it puts an emphasis on the tenet–" all fruit-growing is local"
while we’ve accorded high praises for certain cultivars, we no longer dissuade people from trying other varieties which we didn’t like, because those varieties might be so much better quality in their respective locations.
incidentally @castanea, we are so excited to get to try Black sea the second time around, and hopefully get to try your patent-worthy ‘Orange beauty’ !
li is always a good cultivar to start with, being readily available, and proven to be fruitful in moist/wet regions. @Livinginawe grows his in superhumid florida, and i think he has had some success.
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