Honey Jar and Sugar Cane Jujubes just became available!

:disappointed_relieved::disappointed_relieved::disappointed_relieved:

Your koolaid cup sprang a leak…

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sad to hear that. As with many fruit trees, the thicker the caliper, the less likely to succumb to die-back during a hard freeze. The aim is to try to keep them alive and growing in thickness for at least three consecutive years(with winter insulation/shelter, etc), before leaving out in the cold and unprotected. Even here in vegas, some 6 month-old juju seedlings(being too thin in caliper) die-back during winter, even at not-exactly-frigid temps of 20F.
relatively cold-hardy citrus seedlings also need some protection on their first few years.

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That is a great tip I wish you’d mentioned before! ha. I haven’t been paying close attention to my 2 jujubes and just this weekend I noticed my HJ had a GIANT sucker that had come up from the root stock, blended in with the tree, and was probably almost 2 feet tall and bushy. It just hurt me knowing my poor little tree had put all that energy and nutrients into something I just cut off and threw away. No doubt my tree would be larger had I done a better job monitoring for suckers.

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Yeah I was surprised how fast they grew as well Kevin. I meant to say something a while ago but forgot. My bad. I hate having all that energy be a sucker too.

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Your seeds I planted are still alive.

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I thought I’d show the progress of my SC and HJ jujubes. These were planted about one year ago when several of us all got them at the same time.

(Bucket in included for scale)

BTW…I know that grass was sucking up water and nutrients and it has already been sprayed with weed killer (carefully)

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The use of a weedkiller is noticable on the jujube curly leaves. Hopefully it will grow out of it.

Actually, at the time of the photos I had not yet sprayed the trees, so I’m not sure what you are seeing. But it is a good point. You weren’t a member here a few years ago, but I had a case where a neighbor sprayed 2, 4-D and killed about 15 of my fruit trees and deformed several more-some permanently. So trust me, I’m very careful when it comes to weed spraying!!! But thanks for the mention.

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Growing good, Kevin. :crossed_fingers:you get fruit!!!

Katy

My jujus often have curly leaves. A Jujube Grower FB memeber said he was involved in a reasearch one time that said it was due to humidity. I haven’t decided to either believe or disbelieve that yet. But it does happen.

Katy

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Coming from you that’s a real compliment! They both have a TON of blooms and are a lot larger than last year and I got 1 and 2 respectively last year (keep in mind, that was the same year I planted them so even to get 1 or 2 fruits was impressive to me- I can’t think of any other TREE that fruits the same year you plant a small, bare root one.

The leaves on mine have always looked like that so its normal for me/mine.

One minor problem I am a little worried about is that my tree in the 2ed photo was growing really unbalanced. Instead of going up, it sent out that ridiculously long arm you see going to the right over the bucket. Believe it or not, I cut almost a foot off that thing before the photo. After that, the tree did seem to focus on more upright growth, but it still isn’t a very stable growth pattern from an engineering point of view. I’d like to see more of a straight up “central leader” but I guess it will be fine. I know Contorted jujubes often have strange growth as well, so I guess it will be fine.

hj seems inclined to grow curly leaves. Of the 50+ cultivars we’ve grown, hj and sherwood exhibit this most often.

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My seedlings that I have are very interesting. Some of them have straight up trunks and a beautiful little canopy just like a miniature version of a big oak, and some of them sprawl everywhere. I think it’s pretty much per the parentage of the seedlings. My HJ is shaped much like yours and several of my HJ seedlings follow suit. I only have a small sugar cane and I’m not familiar with them so I really don’t know what kind of symmetry (or not!) to expect of them. I personally like the jujus different personalities. There just isn’t that pressure to have them grow a certain way. That being said you can definitely shape them up to suit yourself!!

Katy

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hj tends to grow ‘upright’ but quickly gets weighted down by heavy fruiting at a young age,and at a relatively low level.

sc and sihong seem to have the strongest wood. Even with heavy loads of fruits, there’s not much sagging as if with botox. Li tends to get saggy at ~10 feet level, producing a canopy of bended-down uprights. Sugarcane is our most preferred interstem due to its strong wood, and tendency to grow plenty uprights even at a young age. Sugarcane also has relatively tiny leaves, so will still let sunlight filter through, even if the grafts are located low.

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@jujubemulberry Can you explain the use of an interstem ? Is it for making a strong upright trunk ? More vigor ?

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Hi @nicollas , it is primarily for making strong upright trunks, since sugarcane wood is stiff and has a tendency to grow many upright trunks relative to size of tree. Hj tends to get droopy with fruits, so would rather graft to sugarcane at about 5 feet level, so should the hj budwood start sagging with fruits, the sagging would likely stop at 5 feet, making it easy to harvest. As for vigor, we don’t have much data other than chico, sihong, bok jo, r1t4 being very vigorous as grafts, but of course mere observations and may just be contingent to the workmanship (or lack of) of the grafts, and possible that the sc interstem didn’t even have any positive or negative effects whatsoever apart from holding the grafts up against gravity.

but most certainly sugarcane as interstems minimize hj’s sagging to the ground. We have a 12 ft tall hj(grafted low to the ground with no interstem) that sagged down to 2 feet level due to heavy bearing. So best to use sc budwood and graft it low and let grow to ~5 feet to achieve the desired ergonomics with droopy cultivars(li, hj, silverhill, r1t4). The variety coco seems to have exceptionally stiff wood as well.

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I have a Honey Jar seedling (January 2017) that is blooming this year. There is no fruit set yet but this little tree has SWORDS/THORNS. Would this possibly indicate the other parent…like maybe SiHong? Another cultivar? Or just a thorny HJ?

Katy

This time when I needle you about how fast your jujubes grow, I’m actually interested and impressed and not just giving you a good ribbing (fun as that is ha). Am I understanding that you planted a seed in January of 2017 and that same seedling is now producing blooms?: Or did you start it from seeds earlier and just put it in the ground in January 2017? If it is the former, then that seems insanely fast. Other than a fig- and I’m not at all sure would- I can’t think of any other fruit tree that could come close to that time frame!?!?!

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Yes, I planted a seed in January 2017. It may have bloomed last year but none of my seedlings produced fruit last year. I have several that are blooming this year and one (a spinosa rootstock seedling) does have a few fruitlets. I think they are very precocious trees.

Katy

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I JUST CAN’T RESIST…

My Honey Jar—-taken today…

Hahahaha

Katy

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