I grew seedlings from seed from my own sugarcane jujube. Germination rates weren’t great, but I did get two seedlings out of maybe eight seeds.
If I knew folks were interested in getting seeds, I would have saved some from this year’s harvest. There may still be a few fruit hanging on the tree (I’ll have to check when I get home). Feel free to message me if interested in seed.
I’ve read that jujube plants need a lot of sun. Has anybody started jujube seeds in the winter and kept it inside the house by a window without additional light and had success with that? Or do they get very leggy without much light?
I have. They do get a bit leggy but some of mine have done very well. I’m in Texas with strong winter sun and if I keep them in a south window they get quite a bit of light. If you do overwinter seedlings indoors they very well may go dormant briefly when put outdoors. Mine did. They dropped leaves for a few weeks and then grew like crazy.
Katy
I Was able to get a jujube seed to germinate last November. It grew fast for about 2 weeks and at about 2 inches tall it stopped growing. Then it just sat there doing nothing until April. End of April I transplanted it in ground. Still no growing. It dropped all the leaves. I could tell it was alive since the ity bity trunk was green. Last week it was turning brown and I scratched it to see if it’s still green underneath. I accidentally broke about an inch off the top. That somehow gave it the signal to start growing again. In less than a week it put on this much growth. I’m happy it decided to stop being moody.
If you germinate jujube and keep it inside all winter it will go into a dormancy at some point. Usually a couple of months worth. I thought a bunch of mine had died but they came back out and grew well. Glad yours is growing! 
it is not uncommon for juju seeds grown indoors(over winter) to undergo dormancy when brought out into ambient temps of spring. The seedlings apparently sense a “net dip” of temps during spring, especially night time dips which didn’t occur while indoors, which make them undergo dormancy. Will then leaf out later in spring or early summer when it gets warmer as you’ve observed.
As a follow-up, I checked the seedling started last year and your prediction was correct. There is fruit about half the size of a pea.
juju youngsters are cute like that. Like a 1st grader learning to read and write. Below is one of our little pea-shooters practicing its ABC’s. This one and a half yr old ‘prodigy’ makes me smile everytime i stumble upon it, amidst bigger and older juju specimens 
Awesome seedling 
What are the parent’s seeds?
Tony
I grow jujube from seed this way like i have shown in this video 
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Honey Jar (blue tag), Contorted (yellow), Rootstock (red) Sugar Cane (purple), Xu Thou (white), SiHong (green). That’s about 2/3 of what has germinated that I’ve gotten potted up. I’ve got about 6-8 weeks before frost and I’m going to try to delay dormancy a couple of weeks or so in the “greenhouse” (which you would probably call a hoophouse.
Nice!! I haven’t cracked seeds that way. I would probably crack my fingers!!
I’ll have a few seeds from Honey Jar and maybe one from its neighbor Sugarcane. Was thinking about stratifying them in moist sphagnum moss in the fridge for a few months before attempting germination. Anyone else stratify them? I’ve read it’s not strictly necessary, but that it can increase germination.
Must I remove the seed from the stone before planting? Being the fumblefingers that I am, I’m afraid I’ll damage the seed. Maybe I can just scarify the stones?
Those seedlings that I just planted were fresh eaten this summer. You do not have to stratify. I’ve been told that you can plant the pit. Soak them for a bit (24 hrs???) before planting. Many of the pits have two seeds. They do take longer to come up and I’ve seen several pictures of them still tightly wearing the pit on their little heads. I have heard of scarifying the pit but I don’t have personal experience planting
I do crack all my seeds as I just really like to. It’s pretty easy to damage seeds especially when you are first learning. It depends how damaged and where the damage is whether they germinate or not. I personally use dog nail nippers to clip on both ends and then a small vice grip to crack the shell. There is a trick to it in how deep to clip and how to turn the shell so that it will crack in the right place. I might try the hammer trick but I don’t think I will be very good at that. Honey Jar seeds are the easiest to crack for me. Sugar cane aren’t bad. Rootstock seeds are hard. Once you get it split in half with two seeds many times the second seed is very difficult to extract. It’s surprising what large seeds come out of those shells.
Thanks, Kathryn! I believe I may experiment with your cracking method.
Trade Winds Fruit sells seeds from several species of Ziziphus. I ordered the Z. jujube and very good germination rates. Seedlings are off to the races.
Anyone knows if jujube seeds will come true to the real variety?
If use for rootstock, the sour jujube is easy to grow from large seeds. Not sure for those named cultivars.
Mature jujube trees send out runners like weeds. You can easily harvest some.
jujus don’t come true, but likely to have some of the traits of their parents. Seedlings that had contorted as their mother(at least the contorted from burntridge nursery) will have contorted characteristics which vary in degrees of twistedness(if that’s a word).
