My knives are very dull, they are not sharp at all. Luckily my girls gave me a very good secateur for my birthday, pretty sharp, I think I stick to the easy method for now.
I think I’ve seen people say how important it is to use a sharp knife, but I don’t think I’ve noticed that much difference. Obviously you need something that can cut the wood (no butter knives…), but I used the same box-cutter blade for hundreds of grafts and didn’t notice any problems. Though I had it in my pocket at a reno and when the contractor needed to borrow a knife for a second he complained that mine wasn’t even sharp enough to cut his finger (I’m sure it would have if he used enough force…).
Aside from the box-cutter, I also have a small florist’s knife. It has one bevel on the blade and works well. I think it cost about $10. Not much, but the box cutter is even less.
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The box cutter is very sharp for me. My hands are not good because I did damage them doing yoga.
Jujubes leaf out late. Even in SoCal it could be another 4-8 weeks.
When you graft early and it’s warm, the grafts can dry out before the grafts take. Whip and tongue grafts can do OK when grated early but most grafts do not. Generally speaking jujubes should be grafted just before the trees leaf out, or as they are leafing out. Otherwise the graft just sits there and in warm climates can start drying out. There is no reason to graft jujubes early.
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Thanks @castanea, I was worried they might leaf out too soon and I was not prepared, like all of my mulberries are. Next year I know, but we’re going to be 76 soon here, maybe Friday.
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And that highlights the basic problem. They store better at 33 degrees out of the sun than they do at 76 degrees in the sun.
Good luck!
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I checked with last year photos and one of the jujube trees had a small green leaf by March 18. So that means they are pushing for buds even earlier, so I think, it’s not too long now.
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I went through my records and figured out that BV1 is an open pollinated seedling of So (AKA Contorted), even though the fruit is a different shape. But that got me thinking and I checked the branches. Yes, it has the zig-zag structure that So is famous for. I was so focused on the fruit that I didn’t stop to check out the ornamental qualities 
It isn’t all that big yet, but I’ve taken some wood and am planning to graft it in more locations this coming spring.
Edit: I’ve been thinking about what cultivar could be the other parent and one possibility is Mei Mi. As far as I can tell, I planted the seed in fall 2016 and Mei Mi was one of the varieties grafted onto the mother tree in 2015. This would explain the high-quality fruit, early season and the elongated form. Other possibilities are a couple of TVA varieties, also grafted in 2015, but neither fits as well and I’m not sure if either of them was still alive by that point, as I lost a lot of my low growth early grafts the first winter. The Mei Mi graft survived to this day. Though maybe you can get an elongated jujube even if neither parent is, so there are a number of other possibilities.
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I really enjoyed this thread. @BobVance, you have convinced me to find myself a tree. Thank you for your posts.
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Cleft is also my favorite graft for scion and rootstock of similar thickness. It’s easy and effective. One trick I have is to use clothes pins for three reasons. Clamp the clothes pin at the spot on the rootstock where you want your split cut to stop.
- the clothes pin will stop a brittle rootstock from splitting too far down.
- it will also allow you to hold the rootstock steady with your other hand without danger of cutting your hand because the clothes pin will stop the knife. (make sure your hand is below the clothes pin)
- clamping the graft tight with clothes pins is much easier and faster than tying the graft with a rubber band.
My grafting must have kit is knife, parafilm and clothes pins.
You can buy bigger clothes pins for bigger scions.
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And don’t forget to use foil to protect the graft from the sun for a few weeks.
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I like this idea. it’s a bit like the board with a hole in it, but self-adjusts to the size of the branch. I may try this out, so that I don’t need to carry around the heavy leather glove.
I’m not as sold on this aspect. I don’t use rubber bands either, though I suppose you could use a really thick one. I don’t think the thin ones (the kind I have) would be strong enough. Maybe if you are very precise with your cuts, the slight pressure of a rubber band or a clothespin would be enough. But I tend to butcher my cuts a bit and rely on brute force to smush the graft closed. The rubber electric/splicing tape lets you get quite a bit of force into it, yet still eventually lets the tree grow through it without girdling (make sure not to get vinyl electric tape, as it needs to be manually removed).
Maybe this type of clamp is worth trying- it looks (and felt) like it has enough force, but I am a bit concerned that there could be open spots. Maybe I’ll try one of these in concert with my normal technique as well…
This could be more important in CA than it is in the Northeast. I don’t usually put foil on any of my grafts. I think I tried it on a few really late ones (June, when 90F+ was coming), but I don’t recall how much it helped. In my area, jujubes can be grafted with very high success anytime in April. May isn’t too bad either, with the success rate dropping off a bit in June (but it can still work).
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It’s 77 degrees high today, not too bad, my jujube trees are on the shady side at this time of the year. So hopefully my grafts were not damage by the heat.
But I really can’t wait for Spring. I now only want to graft the early variety, I’m impatient, I want to eat jujube earlier in the season. What else should I graft next year. I see from Bob’s chart that Black Sea and Massandra are early. Should I graft Sugar Cane or Chico? But this is it for next year. Next year I will also graft more from my own GA-866, I like this variety, decent size and sweet, but it’s pretty late is the drawback.
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Autumn Beauty is also very early, sometimes earlier than Black Sea and always earlier than Massandra.
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Thanks @castanea, I did buy one small Autumn Beauty from OGW, very small plant. It will take at least 3 years to get fruit from this plant. I hope they sent me the right variety.
But when it gets bigger I tend to graft this variety to my existing Li and Lang.
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Does anyone have a suggestion for a good variety to try around seattle.? I think I am sold on getting one after reading thru this thread.
Protect your fingers and control the split cut.
Add a strong clamp like this if you need more pressure than just the clothes pins. I like clothes pins for speed, easiness and because the pressure is directional from two sides, which is perfect for the cleft/wedge graft. You can also quickly remove them to check your graft and then clamp them back on.
Cara Cara orange graft with foil protection from the Phoenix sun. Sometimes I have to use a ziplock bag to protect the new growth on the scion from being dried out by an early April heatwave here. Hot dry desert wind is not my friend.
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I learned the hard way 
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That is clever, now I need to get a pin and a clamp, where can I get one like that.
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