Didn’t know that jujube can mature super quickly from seeds! Less than a year old Jujube seedlings are already blooming! It would be quicker to develop and select various cultivars of these if they are this quick to bloom!
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I am in Z5 and my jujube doing fine at -19F this year past Winter. You may want to winter protect them the first year for the bark to harden up a bit.
Tony
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Here’s the general guide on how to germinate them:
England orchard sells jujube seeds. Once the rootstocks grew for a year or so then you can graft the name varieties to them.
Tony
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Joe,
What was the parent of the seedlings.
Tony
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The big tree has no more label. So I don’t know. It’s my first time to have direct access to jujube. My sister-in-law recently purchased the house with a big jujube tree in it and about a dozen seedlings of various ages growing wild. Will have to dig them up during winter and relocate or give away. I would be able to evaluate their fruits hopefully they’re good.
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amazing right? Can’t expect the same for apples or peaches, and yet jujus can outlive them by hundreds of years. Jujus are a quick ROI and long-term investments at the same time. Where we’re at, jujus are quite precocious as bare-roots or grafts, but not as precocious when grown as seedlings. The youngest seed-grown jujus we’ve grown that actually produced fruits to maturity were two and a half years old. Just inspected the seedlings we planted june of last year, and only one has matured enough to bear flower buds. A seedling from ant admire tree. You could tell that the lower laterals were not mature enough to bear flowers, and only developed them on the second flush of growth higher up, and quite sparse.
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Could there be something restricting the roots? The reason I ask is that I bought some tigertooth years ago that were grown on their own roots. They were in the field for many years and had not produced fruit. I decided I wanted a few more so I started some root cuttings from them. I grew them in root pruning containers on my deck.
In the very first year, the cuttings bloomed and produced a few fruits. It took the parent trees in the field another 4 years to produce fruit.
I spoke with a university professor who specializes in Jujube. His theory was that the root pruning containers restricted the roots and forced the trees from a vegetative state to a fruiting state early. He suggested that if I planted them in the field they would revert to a vegetative state. He was right. I planted those trees in the field that fall and none have produced fruit again.
I’m not sure that is the case with your seedlings, but it is something to consider. There is a thread somewhere on here with pictures.
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it is definitely worthy of consideration. In our soil-type(which may be considered restricting)jujus seem to be just as productive potted as they are as field-grown, at least for several years. There seems to be a limit though, as trees get too big for the pots they are growing in, and production ultimately declines.
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I have several 18 mo old jujus that are bearing fruit this year. Some are potted and some have been planted out for 10 months. They all bloomed late last summer without fruiting but are presently bearing fruit.
Katy
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Zone 6 seems to be fine.
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They’re mostly hardy to zone 6 and a few are hardy to zone 5. The larger problem is getting enough heat units to mature fruits. That’s why seedlings would be a great idea in zone 6 - look for a seedling that develops fruit early in the season under your growing conditions.
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Any follow up on this topic? Seemed like it would interest several…
a pertinent update from my end is that i had at least two seedlings amazingly bear fruits on same year of being planted(in 2018). At ~6 months of age and at about 8 inches tall they started blooming, and produced tiny fruits which ripened but could surmise not representative of true quality of fruits when they get bigger and older. But can conclude that those jujus don’t require much chill hours, since they produced fruit before they experienced their first winter dormancy.
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