The other thing to tell is that, the trees with spike or thorns are likely the wild ones. The ones without would be probably cultivated varieties.
Thorns often don’t breed true in seedlings. I’ve grown seedlings form thorny parents that had few thorns and vice versa.
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I’ve got cultivar trees that will make you bleed……and curse. Chico for one. Autumn Beauty for another. Chico does not outgrow its thorns.
Chico is a seedling variety. Some of the new varieties do not produce viable seeds. Not sure if they are hybrids. They do not have thorns.
I have 2 jujube seedlings that I grew from pits of Asian grocery store purchased fruit (unknown cultivar). The trees are now 3 yrs old and producing fruit so I figured I would share my experience.
I only found 2 viable seeds after cracking open about 25 pits. Most of the pits were empty. I was able to get both of these seeds to germinate. The 2 seedlings are very different.
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The first seedling has more vigorous but lanky growth and needed staking to prevent it from falling over. The leaves are small and somewhat dull in appearance. Several root suckers have sprung up around the base. Thorns are small, sharp, straight and numerous. The fruit are very small but plentiful and actually have a nice flavor. Very rounded. Sweet but with a sour/acidic undertone not unlike a good well balanced eating apple. I suspect this is more along the lines of a “wild type” jujube with some improved flavor characteristics.
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The second seedling has a less vigorous, more stout growth habit. Leaves are 3x larger than the first and have a glossy appearance. There are no root suckers. Thorns are larger but less numerous and slightly hooked. Bloom time was slightly later than first and fruit set was worse. This tree set 3 fruit compared to 50+ on the other one. The fruit are much larger (but still relatively small). Slightly oblong. They are not ripe yet so I cant comment on the taste.
So my conclusion with this is that these did not grow true from seed given that I started with the same seed source, but it has certainly been a worthwhile experiment nonetheless. Worst case with growing out seeds is you have rootstock, best case is a new, halfway decent cultivar.
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You may give them a few years to see if the fruits size improve.
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Tony, good point about the size increasing as they get older.
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They may size up some from where they are now. The tree with the really large leaves also gives you more promise of the fruit being a bit better quality than the average seedling. Most of the good cultivars have large leaves. At least those are the ones I choose when growing out seedlings of promise. I have a seeding that produces small fruit but the fruit is really good and plentiful. I will choose to eat a handful of these over a larger drier fruit.
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I believe the Honey Jar could be a seedling. It has small leaf, small fruits and some thorns. But it is very sweet.