Has anyone ever grown out jujube seedlings from a named variety to try the fruit? I purchased one off of craigslist, supposedly a seedling of Honey Jar. I figured that even if it isn’t great it will still be edible and I can always graft the real Honey Jar on in the future. I was just curious if anyone had grown seedlings to try the fruit and what results they ended up getting.
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You will get what the Chinese call “chicken scratch” – the species.
Well that’s unfortunate. I guess the upside is having a nice established graftable bush next year!
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Yes. I recommend training it on a bamboo stake so you have a reasonably straight vertical rootstock.
honey jar seeds may sprout, but with very low germination rates compared to the wild-type.
li has gigantic pits, and either has large pips or degenerate ones(mostly the latter), but never had luck, not even once,despite having sown way more seeds.
will be doing more tests on >20 varieties by oct or nov.
btw, if you have pillbugs, they will eat juju seedlings(how i lost all of mine), so need to sow them on stilts.
intriguingly, suckers seem not palatable.
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From what I know, the named varieties have long pointed pits or seeds. Most of the seeds are empty and not viable. The seeds that can germinate readily are the ones round and relatively flat. You can call them wild or sour jujube. A friend of mine sent some of the semi-dry jujube from California. They taste just fine, but the fruits are small. I saved the seeds and I got about 10 germinated. Here are some of them in this March.
I see about 7 of the seedlings. I did not even take care of them much. But very surprised to see the high survival rate with such tiny seedlings and over-wintered outside well. I thought most of them would just die in the cold weather.
I’ve since planted them in my garden and they have put out nice top growth. I’m going to grow them for a year or two, then try to graft them.
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