Not a bad idea when it is a new and potentially hard to replace variety…
I don’t think it ever gets that warm/dry here (I wouldn’t mind some more warmth now…). Instead, most of the issue I’ve had is on small trees where the scion/variety never leafs out. Even that doesn’t happen much (once from a C+ in the initial list and once from a good grower). This past year I had a strange issue where a couple of (large) trees were very delayed, leafing out in August/September. They were right next to each other and in an area that the grass wasn’t growing very well. When I dug down to plant another tree in that general vicinity, I noticed that the soil was very dry. I was digging in the afternoon after a morning shower dropped 1/2" of rain and there were 5" of rain in the previous 3 days. The soil under the top 2 inches was still dry. So I mixed in a bit more organic content for the new one and will make sure to water extra on the others as well, assuming they come back after a 1-2 month long growing season last year.
Edit: The one that leafed out in August came back normally this spring. The one which leafed out at the end of September did not, which isn’t too surprising as it didn’t have a very long growing season.
I did not have Shanxi Li. I do have Honey Jar and love it. My two year old tree did not grow much last year and fruited okay but not great. We had a hard drought and it really suffered all year. Because I want to graft to my seedlings I’m also trying to build up my own scion bank. So just call it insurance… Of the fruit I took to work last year the Honey Jar was the best received so I want to have an abundance of fruit of that variety when I start hitting the local markets. And I HAVE to have plenty left for me…. (I plan to market trees but want to have fruit samples to help sell the trees.)
I have ordered some scion from Cliff of some of the varieties that are not well known. Plan to make my own.
most bare-root jujus i obtained from wetter regions, so they all get shell-shocked and need acclimatization.
i totally agree with need for height, especially in your region where jujus need to get as much direct sunlight, and the only way is to outgrow surrounding taller trees and structures.
orange beauty was precocious on sugarcane interstem, bearing fruits on same year of grafting.
i posted it here but couldn’t find if i took a photo of ripe fruits
all the Orange beauty have tried were ripened in extreme heat, at the height of or at the tail end of summer, so fruits may have been compromised(if the cultivar is sensitive to extreme heat). But even so, the fruits were pretty good! Quite sweet with a good amount of sour. It has more of a jujube-sour than a chico-sour. Chico has more of an apple-tart sour. Orange b is something that would prefer over honey jar, depending on my mood/whimsy. Perhaps many might(violently) disagree, but have to say orange b is better than sugarcane, as sugarcane tends to have a bitter aftertaste when ripened in july/august. Will coax orange b to fruit in oct/november to see if cooler weather would make it even more desirable. Thanks to @castanea, btw.
OB does not taste like HJ, Sihong, or Li, or anything else either. I rate it above those three in taste but HJ doesn’t do well here. OB has an unusual combination of sweetness, flavor and tartness. The tartness is much milder than Chico. It just adds more flavor. I rate it higher than Sugar Cane. And it is excellent as a dried fruit. It is my favorite dried jujube.
true to its name @k8tpayaso – the fruits are really pretty, with a nice sheen to it even at >110F(li, chico, and many other jujus develop a matte complexion in hot weather) , and as you can see in the picture, a predominantly orange hue
of course @castanea has the more definitive answer to this query. The Orange beauty grafts i have are still young(apart from having been severely pruned to share budwood with others), but can safely say fruits are bigger than HJ, and at least as large as the largest SC’s. Maybe a tad smaller than the largest chico’s.
Quite a bit larger than HJ and a little larger than Sugarcane. Chico has a lot of different sizes here from small to fairly large. OB doesn’t have fruit as large as the largest Chico but the average size is probably fairly similar.
Keep in mind though that OB is still a seedling growing in a 5 gallon pot and my Chico has been in the ground for at least 15 years. I look forward to getting OB into the ground at some point.
What I noticed last year was that maybe 5-10% of the OB fruits had a constricted type shape like what you might see on some ornamental jujubes.
See the fruit in the upper left hand corner of this photo which has a small indentation -
My order arrived today from Chinese Red Date. Like your’s, mine are about 3’ tall, as the box was 4’ tall and had plenty of room dedicated to roots. Similar to yours, most of them had some decent side branching.
Most of the trees (two Alcalde #1, a Winter, and a Fucuimi) were in the 3/8 to 7/16" caliper range. A bit on the small side, but not bad, especially considering the side branching and decent amount of roots.
The largest tree was Russian #2, at just under 3/4" (maybe 11/16"). Interestingly, this was the cheapest tree at just $30 (the other more exclusive varieties were $50). Such a large tree at that price makes it by far the best bang for the buck (exceeding Burnt Ridge).
They send up to 4 trees in a box, so my order of 5 trees was spread between 2 boxes. I haven’t fully unpacked them, as we have a couple more days in a cold-snap. This weekend should warm up, at which point it the highs will be in the 40’s for the foreseeable future. I think I’ll be able to plant on Saturday, or by Monday/Tuesday at the latest, as the ground could take a few days to thaw, after 4 nights of 12-16F lows this week.
Here’s one box, which includes the large Russian #2:
I got 2 Li jujube from Ison’s Nursery last week cause they were on sale at $19 (overstock), caliper was about 3/4" and just over 5 ft tall bare root. Due to lack of space I planted them about 3 ft apart hoping to graft another variety on to one of them and obviously I’ll have prune between trees. I’ve seen other fruit trees planted like this on YouTube but not a Jujube, hope this isn’t a problem.
I live in Pensacola Florida, hope Jujube does well here regarding taste. Have no clue which variety or varieties I should graft to one of the trees coming winter.
. (I plan to market trees but want to have fruit samples to help sell the trees.)
