Unlike your trees, my jujube 3 trees do not set fruit well at all, esp. Honey Jar. All are 6-7 years old.
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I thought you had a decent set last year, then lost a lot to cracking. Is this year worse from a set perspective?
That was something else I was going to mention- maybe much of my jujjube success in the last 2 years can be traced back to the trees being older.
In the upper half of my sites (Iâd say 4-5 qualify now), they are bearing pretty well by 3-4 years. At the worst sites (where the ground seems to dry out quickly- maybe low organic material) trees are still small and just starting to bear at year 5-6. And that is with me adding organic material, watering and fertilizing. Without those, they could be either dead or the same size they started with.
Growing at a bunch of different locations (all within about 10 miles) really shows me how different everyoneâs experience can be. If you only grew trees at one location your reaction could vary from âThis is pretty easyâ or âThis stuff just doesnât workâ.
have an ~8 yr old tree that i germinated from sihong pit that has yet to bear fruits. Not even flowersâŚ
Have to say though that the vast majority of seedlings will have borne fruits(at least here in las vegas) at about 4 yrs of age.
Occasional juju âprodigiesâ will even bear fruit at 6-7months old, sown in march and already fruiting by sept or ocober of the same year-- doing it with no intervening dormancy period.
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Yes, last year got a good fruit set. Had a dry summer and started to rain often around end of Aug/early Sept when jujubes started to ripen so tons of crack.
This year, somehow Honey Jar leaves have not fully unfurled like normal. It was more obvious in late spring early summer. Still not sure why. Sugar Cane and Shanxi Li grow like they usually do.
Fruit set have been down. I blame it on rain during bloom. It rained almost every other day during jujube bloom time. Even now, we still have had rain every 3-4 days. Today, there was 2 downpours at noon and at 3 pm when forecast called for only 30-40% chance of rain.
After reading through this thread Iâm still wondering what triggers successful fruiting. The rootstock of my Li produced a sucker that at 12 inches produced fruit but 4 years later, at 8 ft tall and 6 yrs old, the Li has only produced 2 fruit. So far none this year.
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I fertilize mine pretty heavily with 20-20-20 while theyâre in bloom, and the fruit set has been great too.
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I have not really fertilizer my jujubes this year. Canât find anything but 10-10-10 around here.
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I got the 13-13-13 at Lowes. I was surprised to get it for $25 for 40lbs, as that is a much, much better price than back when I used to buy fertilizer in the 5-8 pound jugs, even before taking into account that fertilizer prices should be higher, with not much getting out of Russia, Ukraine,and Belarus, 3 of the largest producers.
I figured that Iâd get a big bag and use it for a while, but I guess I just need to get another one.
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Thatâs been my story also. Li is a freeloader.
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Apply away and see what happens! I had poor set on Li last year when I neglected to fertilize it. Honey Jar got plenty and broke some branches due to the crop.
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How old are your trees?
4-5 years in the ground so 5th-6th leaf. They began producing large crops 3 years ago.
have to admit am clueless myself.
perhaps the âtrueâ characters(especially the aspect of productivity) of many jujus can only be reasonably quantified/described if grown in regions where they get the most sun. They can survive in areas with long winters and severe freezes but fruit production in such areas wonât reach full potential.
also have noticed that rootstock/interstem to scion interaction(between various cultivars)seem to be influential in the performance of scions grafted to the rootstock, as well as tendency(or lack) of the rootstock to sucker.
there are at least 20 strains of wild-type rootstock, and thereâs at least 100 cultivars of domesticated jujus.
quite a number of us in this forum, myself included, are credited for(or should i say-- guilty of) broadcasting seeds and seedlings that can be used for rootstock which adds to the gene pool⌠It may be good for diversification, but also counterproductive if such seedlings develop into immortal thorny, small-fruited and suckering rootstock that arenât inclined to subserve Li or hj scions. There is this rootstock i grew from wild-type seed i planted at friendâs house that is about 10 yrs old. It accepts grafts, but will âinsistâ on outgrowing the grafts, even if the scions are grafted to upright stems as bark-grafts. One normally anticipates bark-grafts on upright stems to be most vigorous, but no, the rootstock laterals will establish new upright stems which will soon be the main trunks of the tree. Much like how a lemon interstem behaves when a navel orange is grafted to it(which is understandable since they are of different species). Grafts on lateral stems are far less promising. They may take but will languish vegetatively relative to the rootstock.
conversely some wild-type rootstock seem to be subservient to domesticated jujus. Have noticed that li languishes when it shares an interstem with sihong. Or even if li itself is the interstem to which sihong was grafted to!
needless to say-- i concede i wonât live long enough to make sound generalizations re: scion-to-rootstock permutations
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I just give mine a Vigoro or Jobes fertilizer stick or spike.
One of my Li is loaded, not a-lot of brown fruit, itâs about 12 feet, taller than my wall which is 10 feet. This one is in a tight corner so itâs hard for me to give it a lot of compost, but I think I did give it a little bit. Itâs in a very small container, maybe 6-7 years.
Here is another view
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Li is much more reluctant to fruit than Honey Jar. It also seems to take longer. But it will eventually produce a decent amount of fruit. After all, it is the major commercial variety in the US and it wouldnât be in that position if it never made fruit. But itâs lack of production is not just age. I have a Li that has produced for several years which doesnât look to have much fruit this year. For whatever reason, it doesnât seem to be as happy (no vigorous growth) as the trees around it and is expressing that with no fruit.
The (first time producing and pictured a few posts ago) Li I have at the shaded location is in year #6. Iâve had others that take 5+ years to start fruiting. I still donât have that high an opinion of it, but am willing to keep an open mind on it. Of course that is much easier to do if you have plenty of trees- offhand, I have at least 6 Li, though never more than one per site, unlike Honey Jar, So, Sugar Cane, etc (edit: 8 Li and there is one site with 2). And Li is one of the first for me to put grafts onto.
But, Li is commonly available, along with Lang. And given the choice, Iâd much rather have any un-grafted branches producing Li than Lang which is barely edible.
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I planted a seed from a 12 inch sucker that fruited. That seedling is now in a pot with honey jar grafted to it. If I let them grow there would be over 10 suckers growing in the pot. That one is never going in the ground. My goal is to root a Honey Jar cutting and when successful let all those suckers in the pot grow to see what a jujube bush looks like 
A nice research project goal would be a dwafting rootstock that provides quicker fruiting.
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All my 6 jujubes are grafted. They all starting fruiting by year 3 and more after that. However, setting a lot or not depending on their environment, too. Too rainy, too little water, etc.
Honestly, I was told that jujubes are tough trees that can be grown with little to no care and still be productive. Those must be 10 -20 old trees.
As several of us mentioned it here, we get a better production from our jujubes when we pampered them i. e. keeping it well watered, applying fertilizer, etc, etc.
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At least they donât require spraying 1-10 times a year. 
. I agree that I think they do like certain conditions and I think several of those conditions depend on climate. Some years I have better set than others. This year it has been good except for my young trees and those that are notorious for being stingy.
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My (mostly) Honey Jar produced for the first time last year. Both last year and this year it is loaded during sunny days with a multitude of native bees and wasps, you can hear the tree buzzing. It is surrounded by thin leaved mountain mint (earlier bloom) , peppermint/orange mint/mojito mint (later bloom) and lots of native wildflowers. I firmly believe the flowers bring in the bees and provide homes for them, and the jujube keeps them busy while it is in bloom. I see a respectable crop popping up already this year, Iâm excited. Hoping to try Massandra, Autumn Beauty, and a few others for the first time (thanks Bob!).
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I have lots of lavender bushes in my yard, I only saw the bees lately, buzzing about, I think itâs must be hotter, I saw some fruitlets on my GA-866, for a few weeks, I thought I might only get one. But I grow all of my jujube trees in container, so of course I must fertilize and give them extra water.
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