That’s a good point- the earlier I trim off the uprights, the less energy will be wasted. I’ll need to keep a closer eye on things to see what the timing looks like. I think the flowering usually starts in mid-June for me, so I may need to go around removing uprights at roughly that timeframe, if not before. It doesn’t make sense to wait until the end of July, when I need to remove 4’ of wood.
Point taken on the height. I think I’d only remove upright growth from trees that I think are tall enough. That could probably start around 8’, though if the tree is already taller, 10’ isn’t too bad. If a tree is still only 5’ tall, then I’d leave the leader alone and only trim vertical growth off of scaffold branches. At least for trees with a central leader. I’ve got a few which are more widely branching bushes…
I’ve generally put jujubes in places with good sun access, but there are a few near fences (most not that tall, or the fence being on the North side). Even so, I don’t really want them more than 10’ tall. Picking with ladders is somewhat of a pain that I’d prefer to avoid, though I’m willing to go 1-2 steps up if needed for an increase in productivity.
Just want to mention up front, this thread is a gem, been following it for years.
Also want to add another observation about fruit set. I have a 4yo HoneyJar and in early June this year I headed the tallest primary from 9ft to 7 ft, to control overall height. The remaining main primaries were left as is, they were already <7ft at tips. At the time of heading back, there had been a stretch of warm dry weather, and tons of blossoms at different stages but only <10 set fruits. Now in late July, there are at least 50 fruits set, and counting. The original batch is clear because they are so much larger, relative to new ones. For comparison, last year there were 20 or so fruits total.
What is interesting is that almost all the new fruit set is off the headed primary, even though it accounts for less than half the canopy. And most of that fruit set is off the 30% of the primary closest to the heading cut.
This makes me think that heading the apical growth changed the auxin profile, or other signal regulators in the fruiting shoots off that primary, as BobVance was thinking.
Need to investigate what happens if this is done to a primary that is in a suboptimal fruiting position/growth stage. Can this partly make up for other factors? Is it best done at flowering onset, or after/before?
I did something similar today on a 15’ tall tree, cutting the leader back to 13’. I also cut back the other shoots high in the tree, though only by a few inches. It will be interesting to see if there are 2 flushes of Autumn Beauty in that tree.
I’ve been hesitant to cut some trees back, as the new leaders are new grafts, which I want to grow. In those cases, I’m just investing the tree’s energy in growth, rather than fruit.
But, some of my trees have heavy fruit-set anyway, likely because we are having a “hot dry summer”, just as the title says.
Here’s some set on a tree that I haven’t even needed to cut back. I don’t think I need to push for any more
I think that the wood you gave me has contributed to my honey jar actually fruiting this year! One graft (I think black sea) is over a foot long. Thanks again!
@santanu.basu I might try this on my leader and see what happens. I forgot about that technique. Welcome to the forum!!
You are very welcome! Funny you should mention Black Sea. I was just checking mine out earlier today and noticed something interesting. It didn’t have that many flowers, yet still has a decent fruit-set. I think I remember fruit appearing out of nowhere on it in a past year (likely me just missing the flowers, most of which set). I’ll have to keep an eye on some of the Black Sea grafts that I’ve made and see if I notice the same thing. If anything, not wasting energy on lots of extra flowers would seem to be a good thing.
That redlands and sihong are looking good, how old are they? I’m trying to project out what next year might look like if I got 20 last year and 50-100 this year.
BTW, do you see much of your jujubes being eaten by birds or rodents? Are the thorns any deterrence?
They are both grafts on a So which was planted in March 2019. The grafts were made last spring (2021). The Sihong produced some fruit last year, but this is the first time the Redlands graft is producing. This site is by far my fastest (of more than half a dozen rentals) to produce. It is the one where the lawn grows quickly (weekly mowing vs 10-14 days for most properties). And as long as the trees keep putting on growth, they seem much more likely to produce. Here’s a post from earlier today where I went into more detail on that…
From his video, Roger Meyers had problems with birds. I haven’t here, at least with Jujubes (they are bad on sour cherries, mulberries, blueberries, etc). Sometimes, at some properties, I’ve had squirrels clean me out. But they normally ignore jujubes. Once in a while, they figure it out and then everything vanishes in a day or two. The 2-3 times it happened, maybe half the crop was done when everything vanished.
I didn’t notice any difference between thorny and less thorny cultivars- it all got stripped. Maybe the nasty thorns on Chico would be enough to act as a deterrent, but my Chicos haven’t been productive yet (they look promising this year).
My Li jujube from Edible landscaping eat-it.com survived the Polar vortex of -31F 2 years ago and now are loaded with fruits from warm weather of upper 90s to 101F. Lucky tree to survived the super cold weather.
My two jujubes bloomed in year two but set no fruit… this year they bloomed nicely and both have set fruit.
My varieties… are supposed to be GA866 and Shanxi Li. But now that i have fruit on my Shanxi Li… and have posted sime pictures … some have said … and they are right… that my fruit look like Lang… not Shanxi li. They are pear shaped.
For people who have grafted (I mean branches, not direct scion/rootstock), what method have you used and what’s been the percentage of grafts that took? Did you graft for cross pollination, or just to have more variety in limited space?
Bark or cleft graft on my 9 yeears old rootstock tree. 100% take majority of the time to get a better tasting cultivars like Russian 2, Sandia, Bok Jo, So, Orange Beauty, Honey Jar, Hetian Jade, Alcalde #1, Chico, and Black sea.
I tend to get around 90%, though only about half have sent up a strong shoot (much better in the long term), rather than the single-year fruiting stems. Agree with Tony- cleft and bark, though I favor cleft. Bark is better for small scionwood and small wood seems less likely to send up a vertical.
More to get the variety, though I’ve contemplated the idea that pollination with very productive rootstocks may help increase yields, but it’s a bit hard to prove given other variables. Even so, I’ve grafted one particularly fruitful rootstock in a few places, generally low on the tree, figuring that I wouldn’t get much production anyways from a shaded location.
I have had good luck with my Zenport tool, which is basically a glorified cleft graft. Probably around 70% over 2 years, but that is beginner woes and a low sample size (about 30 grafts).
Many jujubes do not develop full fruit maturity until the trees are older and larger. Shanxi Li fruit was not very good for me when it was young. By the time it was 7 years old it was excellent, far better than Lang, Honey Jar or Li.
It usually takes many years for jujubes to fruit. I planted a tree when I was about 10 years old back in China (early 1980s). The tree grew to about 30 feet tall and started to fruit in mid 1990s after I left China for USA. It produced about 200 lbs a year and I only had a chance to taste the fruit when I visited China in 1999. It’s super sweet, juicy and crispy. Unfortunately the tree was cut down a couple of years ago due to real estate development.
My 5 years old honey jar and sugar cane never fruited till this year after I girdled several branches. Honey jar responded well and the girdled branch now has about 100 fruits. Sugar cane’s branch has only about 20 fruits and many of them were bitten by unknown insects, probably Japanese beetles. So I guess the girdling worked. It’s basically the same thing as you cut for air layering. I girdled about 8 mm on Honey jar but only 4 mm on sugar cane. That could probably explain the difference of fruiting results between the two trees.
I did nothing to all of my jujube trees and they did produce fruit even in containers after the second year of planting. No spray, nothing. In fact this is why I like growing them, I don’t have to do much.
