They get maybe 6-7 hours per day. They did set for several years but then stopped as they got older.
I also never got more than a couple Shanxi Li on my tree.
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I was hoping that my tree would set more/increase production as they get older.
With your input, I am not so sure anymore!!!
My jujube trees get 12 + hours of sun in the summer.
My Jujube trees also get around 12 hours of sun during summer. They do get water from the lawn sprinklers every other day.
Tony
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Thank you for the response. Do you still think jujubes need 72-80F dry weather at bloom time to set well?
Are there other examples of something like this in other plants?
I am now more inclined to believe they more need sun hours than anything else. Any fruit tree has some limit of sun below which they will not fruit, maybe jujubes just have a very high need there. The flowers bloom over a very long period so it seems like there would be a good stretch of weather in there for at least some of the blooms.
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How would you explain a tree getting 9-10 hours in the same spot getting high fruit set one year and the next very little? Thatās the part Iām struggling with here.
Hard to say anything very certain thereā¦ it could be it was more cloudy in the bloom period, it could be it is in an alternate bearing type of pattern, it could be the tree grew taller and the new growth is shading the growth that fruited last year, etc.
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It could be a combination of sunlight, nutrients and water. I agree with your observation that jujubes require a lot of water. Jujubes are advertised as drought resistant and tolerant of poor soils - and that may well be true in terms of the trees ability to survive in tough climates and locations. But many jujube cultivars also seem to shed a lot of immature fruit of all sizes during dry spells. Li seems to be particularly prone to fruit drop in my experience, while So and Honeyjar are less so.
In the following article about the time of day that different jujube cultivars bloom, Dr. Yao cites a study that attributes low fruit set in jujubes in general to the high nutrient competition in the plants as vegetative growth, blooming and fruit set and growth all occur simultaneously:
http://nebula.wsimg.com/b40daff64e5c76e952cab05510988f7b?AccessKeyId=EBB82BB125659809EB83&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
This makes me think that jujubes are tough trees and can grow and survive in adverse soils and climates, but that they are perhaps more sensitive to less than ideal conditions during flowering, fruit set and fruit development. Anything lacking in terms of sunlight, nutrients or water during that time period could lead to the tree dropping fruit. Maybe Scottās trees have never had optimal sunlight, and yours werenāt previously getting quite enough water during that crucial period of time during fruit set. Once you started watering them more, you had better production. Just a theory - jujubes are still very much a mystery to me. But it does seem like theyāre like figs in that certain cultivars do better in particular climates, and what does well in the west doesnāt necessarily do as well for us on the east coast.
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Superb post.
They need a lot more water than most people think in order to produce quality fruit.
They are incredibly tough trees, but they do seem to compartmentalize different functions. If they are lacking in any area, whether itās sunlight, water, warmth or nutrients, they will drop fruit. If they have even more problems, they will stop growing. The tree seems to understand that keeping itself alive and growing is more important than producing fruit. But if you satisfy all of its needs, it will reward you with lots of fruit.
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I also think that pollination its not the most important thing for jujubes. For example I had two different trees (shanxi li and tigertooth) 10ft apart,or less, and had only few fruits. One was in shade,the other had a lot of sun. Then I replanted one, and now they are about 50ft apart. This year shanxi li have lots of fruits,and tigertooth just a few. Shanxi li did not have the new growth almost at all,but tigertooth have enormous. Now comparing these two and fruit production I think that growth have much more influence than pollination. I gave to them the same treatment with watering,fertilization etc. To mention that they had hundreds of flowers and lots of insects on them.
Heat is also important, last summer was rainy and I did not have fruits. This one was very hot and dry. From all of this I have conclusion that they are self fertile, or maybe tigertooth needs another one close to it. Will see next year. If that is the case then Iāll graft one on it or plant one spinosa seedling nearby.
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In my experience the flowers opened in cloudy/humid weather would not set fruits. My Li(?), I bought it a long time ago when they only sold Li and Lang varieties, bloomed twice this year. The first time when it was cloudy and rainy. Not many fruits set and they all dropped when still tiny. When the weather got hot, it bloomed again at the tip of each branches and the fruits all got big and sweet. Last year there was not much rain, and a heat wave in early July. The tree had a lot of fruits and they were very good. We had to water a lot when some of the fruits started wilting, and they turned firm right after. The tree is in an ~18 gallon pot. The same happened with the other four jujubes in containers, three were planted last October and one the year before. All the early flowers were aborted, and they only set fruits when it turned sunny and warm.
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I live in a hot sunny humid area. All my trees are inground in full sun. I did a soil test last year and amended pretty much as advised (lime and N-P-K). We had a cool very wet spring and summerālots of rainā¦lots!!! (Cool for us which means we didnāt hit 90ās consistently until almost July and never saw 100 until late August). I had very good fruit set and virtually none of my fruits split. So they can really do well in lots of rain too.
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Ben, what has your jujube crop looked like this year? Are some varieties cropping significantly heavier than others? Are any of your jujubes showing promise of crops anything remotely like Tonyās (or even the Greensboro demonstration orchard jujube that got cut down)?
I agree with castanea that your last post was superb, by the way, not that I really know, but Iām very much inclined to agree.
Do you and @castanea think any of the issues you described will be significantly less pronounced with older, more established trees? In other words, do you think older, more established trees will be less susceptible to dropping fruit when water and other things are less than ideal?
Youāve inspired me to experiment next year (if I can make time) with watering one random jujube tree really well every day when itās getting anywhere close to dry, starting about bloom time and continuing for at least a couple months to see how much difference that might make. I donāt think itās ever going to be practical for me to regularly water all my jujube trees, but Iād like to see how much watering might explain the difference between my trees and some of the very productive trees Iāve seen within a couple hours of me.
I am increasingly inclined to think that fruit set isnāt limiting my crops so much as very early fruit drop.
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I donāt know that much about jujubes from personal experience yet - Iām still learning. So my post was mostly just speculation. My oldest jujube is a Li, and itās been in the ground about 8 years now. It has always set plenty of fruit but then dropped most of them, and Iāve always compared it to the Li tree close by me at the demonstration garden which produced so much fruit consistently each year. That tree never had any other jujubes nearby for pollination, and they always kept the rootstock suckers well trimmed. The main difference is that Li was right next to a water catchment area that isnāt always full but serves as a reservoir for runoff from the large building next to it. It got plenty of water, and mine didnāt. I didnāt water it because I had always assumed that jujubes were well suited to dry climates and if anything our NC climate was too wet for them.
So the last two springs Iāve topworked my Li with other cultivars, and itās interesting to see compare how theyāve fruited. Honeyjar started fruiting the same year that I grafted it, and this year both of the grafted branches produced a lot of fruit - probably with a density close to what you see in Tonyās photo, just on two relatively small branches. My separate Honeyjar that has been in ground for 3 years has produced a small amount of fruit, but nothing comparable to those branches topworked to the Li yet.
What I was sold as Autumn Beauty by Cliff England but looks too small to be the real deal has also set a fair amount of fruit on a small topworked branch. Everything else, including the Li branches I left on the topworked Li continue to drop a lot of fruit and retain just a few to maturity. I have watered a couple of times during dry spells this year, but I canāt really water all my jujubes consistently.
My Norris #1 has been in the ground for 3 years, and this is the first year it has produced any fruit. But there was little fruit drop, and I only watered a few times this season.
When you compare my trees to Tonyās and you consider the fact that heās growing his in a lawn that gets regular watering and fertilizing, it makes me think thatās the main difference between his production and mine. But it does seem that the age of the tree matters, since my oldest tree hangs on to the most fruit (just some cultivars more than others) despite not getting any consistent watering during flowering and fruiting. And it does seem like some cultivars are much less sensitive than others and will still be able to hold on to more fruit in spite of inconsistent moisture. Maybe the cultivars with smaller fruit do better in this regard - since my Li and Shanxi Li are two of my shiest bearers, and Honeyjar and So are two of my most productive bearers.
Reading that article by Dr. Shengrui Yao really changed my original assumption about jujubes being these super tough trees that ought to produce in marginal conditions. The fact that they donāt slow down vegetative growth like most trees do during flowering and fruiting, and the fact that they continue to flower while fruits are maturing mean that this creates a larger draw on the plantās resources over the fruiting period.
This isnāt an original idea to me - itās basically the same thing that @jujubemulberry has been saying about jujubes needing consistent moisture during fruiting. And the fact that @castanea also concurs with it after growing such a wide range of jujube cultivars over a long time makes me think Iām finally on the right track in my own orchard.
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Of all the fruits that I grow jujube is the most reliable cropper. Just a few pics and few notes:
Location Southern Moravia, Czech Republic, average annual rainfall 450-500mm, no artificial watering, terraced steep southern slope. Heavy fertilizing every second year, far from urban area therefore strong insect activity, close proximity of companion trees (about 15 different varieties):
even cholla grows there happily.
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That seems very dry. I hadnāt thought of central Europe being so dry. Are you in a particularly dry part of central Europe? Or is that more or less normal for the Czech Republic and nearby Poland, Germany, Austria, and Slovakia? It does look quite dry in your photos.
Yes and noā¦it depends, but it is the warmer and drier part of my country - a wine growing area. Another thing is that the southern slope dries real quicklyā¦even after a long rainy season.
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xu zhou has a tendency to split here due to long and repetitive intervals of dry soil before trees get watered.
@k8tpayaso who is growing hers in more humid, and presumably moister soil at dfw area reports of xu zhou not being prone to fruit-splitting
I had a lot of splitting last year when I had to water all the way through fruiting. This year the fruit was full size and turning before I had to water and there was no splitting. XT takes a long time to mature
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Scott- Followed your jujube journey here. After seeing a 15 footer loaded in northern virginia I was all excited about growing jujube. Until I read this. Did you find the mid atlantic unicorn or are they more of a novelty in our area?
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