How many of yall plant your jujubes below the graft?
Mr Cliff recommends it.
I was weeding last evening and noticed my Lang has regrew to over 5 ft tall. It was killed to ground in our super cold winter, it was about 4.5 ft tall so os now bigger than before. I had planted the graft about 4" below soil and Im sure glad I did!
Sihong, same size, was killed back to a foot above soil, and is regrowing vigorously too. As well as several others…
Not planting below graft caused me to totally loose several cultivars including Russian 5, Chico and ShanXi Li… Only Dae Sol Jo and Xu Zhou have went through the last 3 years undamaged. But I have some new ones like Honey Jar and KFC that are yet untested here…
I have had lots of winter damage with young jujubes, in my first 4 years of growing it. 6b, south central KS. My big Temp swings probably contribute to the damage…
So Anyway, I thought I would start a thread on planting or transplanting to below graft.
I plan to go at least 5" deep from now on…
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unlike other fruit species, planting grafted juju stock with graft union below ground will have more pro’s than cons. There are a plenty of pro’s: less need to stake tree if planted deep, more protection against dieback due to intense winter cold(due to insulation), and chances of rooting from the scion is facilitated, which would further increase chances of the scion surviving should a severe dieback ensue, since the ‘de novo’ roots from the scion will theoretically have an ‘unlimited’ supply of nodes to leaf out from, producing self-rooted clones of the original scion.
speaking for myself, i would much prefer to broadcast jujus as self-rooted clones as this not only has the benefits i mentioned above, but also has the benefit for the would-be grower of never having to deal with thorny suckers producing tiny, bland(or sour) fruits typical of the usual wild-type rootstock used by nurseries.
and if have to give away grafted specimens, the rootstock should itself be that of a desirable cultivar, so should dieback ensue below graft union, the grower will still have a good quality cultivar leafing out from the rootstock.
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speaking of which, chico is a must-have imho, and even more of a must-have as self-rooted clones! As soon as we’ve bulked up our inventory of self-rooted chico’s(and other desirable cultivars), we will be holding a first-come, first-served yearly giveaway(postage included) on our youtube channel.
the process will be slow and the giveaways few, but the intent is to fill all idle farmland/yards with this high-value, nutritious and extremely long-lived crop 
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That is wonderful @jujubemulberry !!
Yeah I am sure interested in the more sour types like Chico and porterville.
Yeah I am growing out these unknown ones on their own roots, I hope they will hold some fruits for taste testing and to let you know their flavor too! I have you one as well!
Anyway, yeah I am all for spreading these fruits! I have given several to local friends! 
All of the above ground dieback I have had especially in 2021 and 2019 has been a bit of a setback, but as I see things like that Lang regrow when planted below soil level it makes me regain confidence in their value here in kansas as a late blooming crop!
My honeyjar is holding several so I might get to pick my first fruits of named cultivars this fall(the only ones I picked last year were the sour rootstock but really they were pretty decent to my taste).
Also those LeFleur seeds you sent me are growing out and may set a few this year!
When I start getting seed from good fruit I hope to grow them all out and well find some new flavors!
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growing them from seed is a bit painstaking, and may take 2 to 5 yrs at the least, but once a seedling bears quality fruits, you could literally put your surname on it 
btw, some seedlings may be precocious enough to bear fruits at 6 months of age, but the precocious ones typically bear tiny fruits, at least from my experience…
that’s exciting, keep us posted!
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I think the actual graft line of my Massandra that “died” and regrew was maybe just below ground level. I had two suckers that grew. One was rootstock and one was Massandra. I don’t know that I actually found the graft line on this tree but the regrowth that is Massandra is at ground level.
I have a tough time burying graft lines as I have red clay a few inches from the surface. I have grafted jujus that the graft line is 10-12 inches or more above ground level. These are trees I have purchased.
I wonder how cold tolerant Chico is. Mine was killed at -4 ish but then the rootstock died too. @tonyOmahaz5 has lost Chico grafts in his zone. Perhaps Chico hates the cold.
With my many seedlings, potted, with only the small snow cover insulation and pots frozen solid I didn’t lose many plants. But I had only two or three (out of hundreds) that had to struggle to come back. Basically very few were killed and even less were hurt and then recovered.
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@jujubemulberry That sounds great, “Paul’s Super Duper Delicious” here we come!! I will keep you posted hopefully some good news not far ahead!
@k8tpayaso My Chico did fine in several below 0F events, maybe -4 or so, but the -12 this past Feb fried it totally! Its graft was about 6" above ground. And in a semi-protected spot too. The rootstock is coming back… I plan to graft some suckers and seedlings and graft low, within 3" of ground, and then transplant deep, with graft at least 5" below surface from now on.
I bought some that were grafted high as well, like for instance my Dae Sol Jo is about 2 ft above the soil, so that was disappointing for a 3.5ft tree to be 2’ rootstock, and 6" scion with a thin 1’ tall new growth off of it making it to the 3.5 ft mark. So cant burry that graft… But the great news it has been hardy… And done some reasonable growing. So what I plan to do is graft it low to a new sucker or seedling for a second tree that gets later transplanted to where the scion is buried 5" deep or more… So thats my plan, to make everything be buried from now on.
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yeah, that even the rootstock succumbed-- it could mean that tolerance to cold can’t be guaranteed by nursery-grown rootstock with wild-type characteristics. It is possible that named cultivars might have more cold-tolerant roots(as self-rooted) compared to the roots of random wild-type rootstock. Of course, only way of knowing is to try them on their own roots. I think that it would help to plant a self-rooted juju clone in a pot the first couple years and brought into garage in areas having frigid winters/late frosts. And only plant outdoors when the caliper of main trunk approaches 0.5" or thicker is attained.
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The thing is though…. Our ground never froze. We had about 8 inches of snow cover and it was melting from underneath. I had a shovel out in the snow and just stuck it easily in the ground. Our ground never even froze. So…… was something else going on with the Chico? It didn’t appear to be sick. It had a lot of lichen cover but it had that from Brenham. I dunno but it tried to leaf out this spring after the cold and any growth wilted away and the rootstock never suckered.
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that is actually good news for chico’s cold-hardiness! as could only conclude it was the rootstock that was ‘weak’.
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If you like sour, get Sweet-Tart. It’s very sour and very sweet at the same time.
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I had two Chicos that handled -14 with no damage.
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Wow @castanea Sweet Tart looks very nice!!! A nice balance? I love tart things, like for instance these sand hill plums and mayhaws and yeah fresh pie cherries!
-14 that is great news!!! That raised my hopes for eventual success with chico! Is sweet tart proving hardy in MO as well?
Thanks!
I don’t even have Sweet-Tart now. I can’t remember if anyone has it in zone 6. It actually might not do well in zone 6 because the fruit matures very late, from October - December.
I have Sweet Tart if you need any of it. Mine is small but growing well. I have not had fruit yet. @castanea, have you moved into a questionable zone for it?
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I’m in zone 6 now and it seems unlikely it would mature well here. I hope to be in zone 7 this winter and that would be better.
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One thing about our zone 6 climate is we get an earlier spring(may1 instead of may20 ± than say zone 6 KY, and we get a lot more heat than say zone 6 NJ… So later ripening things may have a bit of an advantage here as compared to many z6 places… I am not an ecpert yet(maybe in 7 more years lol), but, For instance Topeka jujube is a late ripener, yet its from Topeka KS… If it can ripen at Topeka It can do better for me down west of Wichita…
What do you think @castanea does that sound like reasonable thinking? Perhaps we might surprise ourself on what will ripen here?
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That sounds reasonable to me!
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@castanea , this is the potted sweet tart which can send back when you’re ready to re-establish on your future orchard. Btw, i poached a couple root cuttings in january so probably explains why not fruitful. Looking forward to re-sample the sole fruit this has when it ripens !
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It would be interesting to hear when it ripens and how it compares to Topeka and others of a similar time! Perhaps @castanea needs to trial it here in z6!
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