You need multiple people for “substantial amounts”? I doubt that I saved half of the pits from this year and I still filled 4 one pound peanut butter containers. I probably exceeded the recommended daily amount of jujubes by a wide margin
And this is after I already used a bunch for planting. Of course, it looks like the pits in the 3rd jar went bad- maybe I closed it up before completely drying them.
I’ll be sending out scionwood in a few weeks (I tend to do a lot at once, as it takes quite a bit of time) and can send out pits to anyone who needs them at the same time.
I accidentally did something like this. I decided that I wanted to plant some Texas Tart jujube seeds, but neglected to put more than one or two pits aside. When cleaning up the fridge, I found a half full sandwich bag of rotten fruit (I label variety on each bag). So, I squeezed each fruit until they exploded, with the pit popping out.
wow @BobVance, seems like you eat a whole lot more than i do! Were those hj’s and sugar cane? the seed yield will definitely be more(per person) since the pulp of hj and sc are smaller. I guess when i wrote that was pertaining to my bias towards sihong, which is what have been trying to get seeds from for the most part. It is one of the larger and higher quality jujus that actually produce viable seed. The yield is lower than smaller-fruited jujus as hj/ contorted/ant admire because many sihong pits are either empty or will usually only have one seed per pit.
have not tried fermenting jujus as worried the anaerobic conditions( possibly alcoholic) could poison/compromise the seeds within, so might not be worth the effort of extracting seeds from such pits-- the rather lazy orchardist i have always been lol
Most common were Honey Jar and So (maybe 60 & 70 lbs respectively). After that, the most common are Sugar Cane and Bok Jo.
The most common big one was Shanxi Li at about 5% by weight), though I don’t think I saved very many of the seeds. Probably for the best, as my wife ate a bag of Shanxi Li recently and after drying the pits for a week or two, only 1 pit of the 20+ even rattled. Of course, I’ll never know if it had a viable seed, as when I was cracking it, half of it flew off across the room and what was left in my lap had nothing.
At least for me, most jujube pits have only one seed. That was why I was so surprised by Texas Tart having 2 seeds per pit for most of the fruit.
Maybe, but I figured that in nature seeds could go through that same rotting process. It was worth a shot and I’ll post if it worked. It was also that or wait a year for more Texas Tart fruit and I wanted to get started, as it takes a long time for seedlings to size up enough to fruit for me- 5+ years.
you have a point there. I guess it is a matter of how extreme the toxic conditions are, as well as the duration the seeds were subjected to the toxic conditions.
the most precocious juju seedling i have come across fruited at just 8 months of age, but fruits were tiny and the specimen itself was typical spinosa(thorny!) I destroyed it.
bigger-fruited jujus usually take at least 2-3 years from germination before bearing fruit.
I think you have surpassed me for saving seeds! And I look at those and drool…. . But I try my best to keep my seeds sorted as to variety and plant them same way so that I have specific seedlings. There is a lot of people out there wanting seeds.
I have another couple of zip lock bags sitting out to ferment to make it easier to pop those seeds out. I had a low yield fruit year last summer due to the drought.
I do too. Those are my “general mix” seeds. I kept some specific varieties in zip locks, which I then put in glass jars. I use the jars, as I still have a low-level pantry moth problem and I’ve seen them drill into jujube pits, so I assume that a plastic bag won’t stop them.
I’ve already used most of my variety specific seeds, as I’ve planted out quite a few this winter. Though not on the same level as what you’ve done- I remember you posting a pic with ~100 Xu Zhou seedlings…
I watered a lot last summer, so I think the hot sunny weather actually helped me a lot. Normally we have too many clouds. Either that or my jujubes are just older and more productive. I may never learn which it is though, if we continue to have hot/sunny summers
This seedling jujube is very nice. Lots of insect pressure this year, but it has fruits about the size of honeyjar. Small fruits are not all bad with jujubes. Hopefully it starts sending out more suckers very soon. Got this one from @39thparallel. It is a locally grown seedling that is much more hardy to this area. Many seedlings were not hardy enough to survive here. The sweet and sour seedling fruits were mostly covered in insect damage. There was only a couple that were not.
There are similar warnings on China websites for their domestic buyers. One of the similar looking seeds is actually from an entirely different genus.
A family friend brought back about half a kilo of spinosa seed they picked up from a northern-China jujube farm I visited with them under a phyto and import permit (they plan to plant a LOT of jujube). Nothing like fresh from the source.
