I ordered some gibberellic adic and it came with dosage instructions for various mg/L amounts, including a handy 1/20th tsp measuring spoon. So I should be able to get the right dose 
Whether this works or not Iâm relieved to learn that other people are also having serious pollination issues around me. I thought it was just me or my yard or something.
hope it works for you. It has been years, if remember it right.
Show two pictures of jujube fruits that my friend took last fall after using Gibberellin on his jujube plants.
Show the pictures of another friend who grows jujubes in San Jose, CA. Yes, he used Gibberellin on his plants.
I am a new member but I have been reading this forum for a long time. I have a feeling that some people like myself would plant fruit trees to avoid all the pesticides and additives which can be harmful to human or environment. I know not getting fruit from the tree is very frustrating. However, reading the following article kind of make me concern about the effects of Gibberellin in the long run. Maybe someone with more knowledge can help me with it.
True. Home grow different than commercial, quality vs quantity.
I agree, my concern is what a regular use of GA3 does to the plants in long term. Loss of hardiness and probably susceptibility to diseases - who knows? I am certainly not the one to try it, especially with jujube. There are better ways to improve pollination. Having more trees of different varieties growing close to each other, planting dill and other useful plants under the trees to attract insect pollinators, regular fertilizing and so on.
That article doesnât show any known concerns about GA applied so early, and when applied in the bloom stage it will all be gone by harvest. So, it doesnât worry me so much that there will be any on the fruit at all. I generally donât like applying such things myself and Iâm not sure I will keep doing it, it is more an experiment at this point to see if it will do anything. Applying GA later could leave some hormone on the fruit which is not a good idea. On early application the main risk is to the applier I would say. I found the following detailed analysis which showed GA3 is not so toxic: https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2012.2507 but still any hormone is not a good thing to ingest. Note that GA3 is permitted by OMRI as an organic: https://www.omri.org/generic-material/gibberellic-acid-1 so the organic grapes you buy were probably treated with it. Grape treatment is also at bloom.
@Harbin, I tried all the things you list in the last 15 years of growing jujubes, I have 12 varieties in 20 feet of row and there are lots of pollinators, fertilizers, etc. This is the last thing I am going to try before I rip them out.
a part of me says @Sophia2017 is right, but a part of me also thinks @anon18642480 is right, and a part of me(the selfish-and self-serving part of me) hopes @scottfsmith will proceed with the gibby acid treatment, just to see what his results might be, whilst also wary about yet unknown health implications getting exposed to botanical steroidsâŚ
I took prenatal vitamins when I was preparing for a baby. Do prenatal vitamins have no any health implications to women or to babies? No one can tell you for sure. The scientists could list a hundred of possible known health implications. I take melatonin when I canât fall sleep. Yes, melatonin has a lot of known health implications. I still choose to use it.
About GA3, Dr Yao recommended it to the members in our wechat group. Just like Scott said only very tiny amount is applied in flowering time, and it should have gone by harvest time. Dr Yao said that,too.
Anyway, use it or not is your own choice.
Thank you for your response. It was a very long report. I went through the whole article and the main thing I noticed was there were a lot of data gaps. I donât know if there is any more information since then. As you noted, the analysis showed GA3 is not so toxic. However, that is quite a relative term, depends on the personal health of the consumers. Also, as you noted, it is permitted by OMRI.
There were two things that concern me from the report for the long term effects:
In short-term oral studies with rats, the critical effects were observed in kidneys and liver (increased
relative weight). The relevant short-term oral NOAEL is 680 mg/kg bw/d (90-day rat study; Auletta,
1990 in Hungary 2008, 2011).
Classification and proposed labelling with regard to toxicological data (Annex IIA, point 10)
peer review proposal
Substance classified (name) No classification is proposed. However, the
database is not suitable to assess adequately the
reproductive toxicity and carcinogenic potential.
As for growing jujube, I have one in an ~18 gallon container that I bought from Amstrong Garden a long time ago, so the name was lost. It had no fruit for a long time. Three years ago it had some small elongated fruits so I thought it was a Lang. Next year there was a small plant growing from the rootstock that was full of tiny and sour fruits that I eventually took out. The main tree was full of flowers but no fruit. Last summer, it was full of big, round and sweet fruits and I really donât know what variety it is now. The only difference was I put in a new Pink Lady apple in container, which had fruits and flowers, about 10 ft away. I have a fuji apple in another section of the yard that has a lot of fruits every year, but didnât help the jujube at all. We will see what happens this coming summer.
Thanks again for your help.
totally agree.
am really clueless about it apart from not needing it since in a zone favorable to jujus, so really curious how it will work for those who seem unable to get their jujus to fruit.
I am very happy with your suggestions. One time I just sprayed a little solution of tomato leaves in water on a citrus tree with aphids. After seeing a bee died at the bottom I donât spray anything else since then. The population of bees around here reduced a lot the last few year already. I know jujube is pollinated by ants, but we have a lot of stone fruit trees too. After last summer my husband was so happy we added Honey Jar, Sherwood, and GA866 . We have a Sugarcane on another section of the yard that had only some flowers and 3 tiny fruits last summer. The Pink Lady might not be the cause of the good crop, but I will keep it close by just in case.
I used prenatal vitamins, and one of my friends uses melatonin for sleeping too. However, I havenât met any doctors who recommend hormone use without a reason. My old fashioned OB didnât even let me use antibiotics while expecting. It is up to the individual to make a well-informed decision. However, I always remember what my daughter told me " think about me when you put anything questionable in the yard or on the trees".
First ants eat the flower honey. Hence it is one reason of decreasing production. As far as I know, ants do more harm to fruit trees than beneficent. They did help pollination in somewhat. But wind can do more part. Most jujube varieties are self-fertile, but cross-pollination can increase quality and quantity.
If agriculture doesnât use anything on the plants, most of ppl in the world will starve.
I think you might not get what I mean. I mean no one can tell you 100% safe when you eat some suppliments. GA3 is a natural plant hormone with no known health implications so far. It can help your jujube trees to set fruits.
In my backyard, I use chicken manure to grow my vegetables and fruits. Chicken manure is also questionable. What did they feed the chickens? Do the chicken dead bodies in the manure carry some diseases?
Thank you for sharing. I understand the hardships other growers may have to go through. I am very thankful that the socal weather has made it much easier for me to grow different varieties of fruit trees. We all love our family and try the best for them. Thanks again and best wishes.
There is another option to increase yield - borax. It must be more safe and more effective than GA3:
http://www.actahort.org/books/840/840_47.htm
" Six different treatments were used to improve fruit yield in jujube like borax-0.3%, urea-0.5%, KH2PO4-0.4%, GA3-10 ppm, girdling and control. The chemicals were sprayed on jujube tree two times during flowering every year. Observations were recorded for pomological description and the numbers of fruits from the different treatments. Results indicated that the treatments affected weight, thickness, height and width of the fruit. Spraying of borax resulted highest fruit yield in both the years of study. Borax application also gave higher fruit length, weight, width and thickness. "
Maybe I should explain a little on why I was so concerned about pesticides and additives. Nine years ago my daughter got very sick and no one could figure out the reason. She was in high school at that time. She had problem with cow milk and didnât like goat milk. It was cold, so every morning she and I had one cup of soy milk before school. We got the organic brand from a famous chain in socal. After eliminate all the possible causes, I tried to asked the company where they got the soy milk from, they never replied, and reading online I learned that they never disclosed the source of the soy bean. An employee told me one day that they had delay shipment because of problems at the port. I know the soybean from USA come from the north or midwest so there shouldnât be any port involved. I asked a health food store to order the organic USA soy bean and made the soy milk myself. After a week she got back to normal, but I never fully recover from it. Since then I still buy at that store but only the products that have the source listed. This summer after September there is not much fruit left, so we bought a lot of jujube since I knew it came from a place in central California, and they are supposed to be disease free so it should be relative safe to eat. I got so sick after a while and we stopped, and I am getting better but not quite well yet. After reading about all the new development from this forum, to be safe we bought a lot more fruit trees to grow. We are getting old so he bought me the trees that would bear fruit this summer hopefully. Maybe my family is not healthy like everyone else, but I want to give the extra fruits to friends and relatives without worrying about them getting sick. Thanks again for your time. I learned a lot from this forum and I really appreciate it.
