Graft when they are just starting to leaf out, which will be quite a while.
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I sent Black Sea scions to someone that has Russian #2 a few years ago. He also confirmed they are identical to him.
Hi Bob, where is your Dong from? Is it the same as Dong Zao from Cliff England?
Most of my varieties like Sugarcane and Black Sea ripen too early in the Phoenix late summer heat and are dry and mealy. Sugarcane has a very light second crop in November that is better.
I’ve been trying to get Sandia scions because a late variety can ripen in autumn to avoid the terrible heat.
Dong sounds even better if it’s even later than Sandia.
Sherwood is a later variety.
Winter Delight is very late.
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Is there a chart with harvest dates anywhere?
Mine is from Chinese Red Date. I’m not sure where Cliff got his from.
To me, they are almost identical, other than Dong being a week or so later in coloring up. Though for people not in extra-long summer climates, they were pretty good even before getting any brown, though obviously not as good as fully ripe.
For me, Sherwood was about the same as Sandia, September Late, and Tigertooth, in terms of season. Very late, but before Dong. But aside from Sandia and Dong, I wasn’t impressed with the fruit quality from the other 3. Maybe they would have been better with warmer days when ripening. It was Late October and into November for Dong.
I only got a few fruit from my Winter Delight, but they didn’t seem that late. I wonder if I have a mislabel (OGW in 2018). I only got a few fruit, but it reminded me a bit of Coco, though the fruit was a bit thinner. But with only 2-3 fruit on a young tree it is hard to say.
You can look at the grid at the bottom of the first post in this topic. I have things broken into early/mid/late/etc, but you can translate that as follows, at least for my location last year.
Early: late Sept and 1st week of Oct
Mid- 2nd & 3rd weeks of October
Late- late Oct
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In my experience the thorns become smaller as the tree matures.
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It makes sense that Sandia is a bit earlier than DongZao. chinesereddate.com refers to Sandia as Early Dongzao somewhere on the website.
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I just grafted all of my jujube scions from Cliff. Orange Beauty and Bob Jo were tiny sticks, I hope they make it. But he sent me decent Massandra and Black Sea.
All of my graftings last year died, I originally though they took, but in opening up the grafting site I realize they are dead, but the sticks are still green for some reason. Hoping my new grafts will be better. I think having Parafilm tape is very helpful, unlike what I had in the fall. The cutting tool and the tape that I ordered from Amazon is useless to me, I now use my very sharp secateur for making the cut.
If the sticks are still green the try to graft them again. They may calloused and take. Nothing to lose.
Tony
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That’s ok Tony, I might try again next year, these are from my own tree, they are very small sticks.
Btw, do you grow any calabash gourds. I used to grow some that the fruits were 4 feet long and they make good soup dish but all the seeds are not viable anymore after 10 years in storage. @SoCalGardenNut
No, I don’t even know what they are.
I did some googling and definitely no, I don’t even buy them.
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What type of graft did you do? This is too early for some grafts.
I did something like this, it’s much easier to use my tool at an angle. It’s going to be 70 degrees here this weekend so that’s why I did it. Freesias are setting buds here.
But I’m prepare for failure.
Make sure you use a rubber band and wrapped around it up and down to get a tight bonds .
Tony
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I tried @tonyOmahaz5, I wrapped another layer of plastic wrap, then I tied them again. But I suspect Black Sea and Massandra will be ok, not the others.
I did more practice grafting with 15 more scions of figs.
Today I will graft some jujube scions for my brother. I think after this year I will be more experienced.
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I’ve tried splice grafts, but haven’t had as much success with them. They often work (and are Alan’s favorite), but my go-to graft is a cleft graft.
That is where you make the end of the scion into a wedge and cut a 3/4 - 1" cleft into the rootstock. Here’s a pic of me holding the graft in place initially. This example was with a very small scion, which greatly increased the difficulty. It’s much easier to work when there is more wood to hold it by.
1.) I pre-wrap the scion in parafilm, which extends almost down to where I make the wedge shape. Parafilm should be slightly stretched before wrapping, as you don’t want it too thick.
2.) Make the wedge and cleft cuts, hopefully getting good matchup of the cambium layer. I try to either cut away from myself or use a heavy/thick leather glove on the non-knife hand, as too much blood isn’t good for the graft 
3.) After positioning the scion in the cleft, pinch the wood shut and tightly warp with rubber splicing (electrical) tape (rubber, not the vinyl stuff). Temflex is a good option. It adheres to itself, so it is pretty easy to keep it in place. Before starting I tear/cut off a couple inches of tape, as you’ve got enough to worry about handling to add scissors to the mix or risk breaking the union by trying to rip the tape once it is in place.
4.) Wrap parafilm on top of the rubber tape union, stretching from where the pre-wrapped parafilm starts to below the union. I’m not sure if this last step is completely necessary, but in addition to better sealing in moisture on the graft, it may keep the black tape from getting quite as hot in the sun.
5.) Take notes on the location and add a label. There is a decent chance that one of those methods will fail you (lose the note, tree grows and makes it hard to find, tag blows off or fades, etc) and you’ll be glad that you have the other.
Here’s a pic of what the graft should heal like.
Note that while the rubber tape held things tightly initially, once the graft healed and the branch started to thicken, it was able to rip through the tape. This is a good thing, as I used to have problems when using plastic tape to hold the grafts together, as I’d forget to remove it and it would start to girdle the branch after a year or two.
Here’s a jujube root section that was left over after a moved a tree last spring. I did a a number of cleft grafts to the root sections and had good success for the larger roots. If I cut the roots up too small (3-4" wasn’t enough) it didn’t work too well.
This pic is from before I put the final parafilm onto the rubber tape at the union.
I think this is the same graft a few weeks later, when it started to leaf out.
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@BobVance, I did try the Cleft grafting with my Asian pear, but I somehow I ended up splitting the whole branch, I did that on several branches, so no more, my hands are not good.
But today I might try that with the secateur on my brother’s tree. He has a big tree, I can do several experiments.
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That’s where the thick leather glove comes in for me. If I don’t grip the rootstock/branch, I’m not able to properly control the force of the split, though gently rocking can help. So, I put on my armor and use the thick leather (I saw someone use a piece of plywood with a hole for the branch to stick through) for splitting the cleft into the rootstock. Over time I got good enough at it that I can usually do it without the glove, but why risk it. Like the time I was teaching my dad how to graft a few years ago “now be careful about this part, as you can cut yourself…DOH…just a minute while I get a bandage”
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