I’ve had decent success grafting jujubes, but being able to just transplant suckers would be a lot easier. (I’m transplanting suckers for rootstock anyway.) What options are there for jujubes on their own roots? I think I’ve read that Tigertooth could be gotten on its own roots? What other options are there? Any varieties you’d particularly recommend?
Sherwood is widely grown on its own roots.
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I have a Sherwood (from Hidden Springs), but it’s not on its own roots. Grown here, it’s far from my favorite variety so far (although the very tail end of its season yields quite good fruit). I’ll probably keep the one tree I have but only multiply other varieties. If I had it on its own roots that could tip the scales differently.
Bob Vance reported this about Just Fruits and Exotics in an earlier thread.
Just Fruit and Exotics- They sell very nice potted trees (1/2"+ caliper) and are who I got my first So from in 2011. This time I got two more and a Tigertooth and planted in mid-October. The Tigertooth has grown well, almost as good as the ToA trees. The So both had a lot of die-back, one to the ground and the other to within a few inches of it. I emailed them to ask if they were grafted or propagated from cuttings, as I wasn’t able to locate a graft union. They responded that they propagate them from softwood cuttings in summer, so all the re-growth should be So and not a wild rootstock. This seems like a big benefit to me, and not just in die-back situations (which should be pretty rare, as my old So has never died back). I’ve got several suckers from it, one of which I’ve transplanted and grafted. I had plans to do the same with the others, but now I can just transplant them without grafting. @forestandfarm may be particularly interested in this.
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Thanks for that tip, Steven. I just called JF&E, and they said that all the trees they have in stock right now are on their own roots, and all the trees that are out of stock should all be on their own roots when they’re available again. $46 plus shipping just seems really high, though. I’d much rather start with a smaller tree and wait another year or even two or three if I could start a lot cheaper. I’d certainly rather graft a tree myself than pay $46, but if I paid the $46 once, over time I could multiply it so easily for free… even at $46 it’s tempting.
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Yes, very interested. I’ll check them out again. That was the original source for my tigertooth on their own roots.
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If jf & e is doing that with all their cultivars, i’ll buy more. Bought their tigertooth last year, with shipping was around $75. It did what all my other grafted jujubes did when young and not established, died back, but didn’t have to worry about being stuck with a rootstock. I think i had bought 6 or 7 grafted ones in the past, and I have one that stayed a graft , others turned to rootstock.
Eric,
I have Sherwood on order because I am looking for a good late season variety. What about it don’t you like?
I have Sherwood ordered with my muscadines with Ison’s but may may cancel the Sherwood and get the Winter Delight from JF&E.
the silverhills i got from Mr Meyer were airlayers. Problem is that growth has been laggy, and have yet to sucker after ~5 years. It behaves exactly like many citrus airlayers-- fruitful but slow to grow.
That is very good to know because every grafted So tree I have ever had has eventually died back.
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Interesting…The Tigertooth I got from JF&E on their own roots did great vegetatively but still have not produced fruit. It did take about 5 years or so to see suckering with them and then I only got a few sprouts. As you can see from my other posts, trees started from root cuttings from those trees also did pretty well vegetatively.
I like Sherwood a lot. Be aware that Winter Delight is very very late. I have about 60 jujube trees and WD is always the last to ripen fruit.If you’re in zones 5-8 it may not ripen for you.
Last year, I propagated 4 Honey Jar jujube trees from seed. They are still very small for grafting. I’m going to let them grow for a while and see what happens.
I’m a long way from grafting anything.
How Large are your 60 trees?
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About 10 are large trees in the ground, most around 25 years old. The rest are in pots.
it is really mysterious if not outright weird. Makes me think age has something to do with it, plus individual variations. Our silverhills were actually overtaken by our black mulberries and gerardi dwarf, which says a lot about how stunted they are.
Yes, Jujube really perplex me.
yeah, us too! Sherwood on their own roots are quite worthy, being virtually thornless, and if suckers should develop, fruits are pretty good. Strange though that the sherwood i obtained from Mr Meyer were grafted, but the silverhills were not.
c5, I’ve heard some other people on this forum make a point of mentioning Sherwood for great flavor, and I expect I’d think the fruit from their trees tastes great, too, but grown here, based on my experience so far, it’s just not very sweet and flavorful. I find some jujubes practically too sweet for my tastes, but Sherwood has been at the other end of the spectrum for me for most of its season. I might even say that I’ve enjoyed the sour-but-flavorful, not-sweet fruit of my rootstock suckers more than the Sherwood at times. The latest ripening fruits seem to have been plenty sweet, though, and if they all tasted like that I’d be plenty happy with the variety. It’s also not especially large: larger than Sugarcane, but smaller than Lang and Li. The one thing I’ve heard someone else on this forum say about it that matches my experience is that it took a long time to start bearing. It might have borne just a few fruits, but it wasn’t until its 8th year that I got a real crop. It was loaded then, though, much more so than my Li or Lang have ever been (the only other two varieties I’ve had long enough to really compare in that respect, although my Sugarcane was loaded this year for only having been grafted last year.)
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That is really odd because I have visited his nursery and inspected his jujube trees and all that I looked at were grafted.
Sherwood for me is often like Sugar Cane (and Li and a few others) in that it doesn’t flavor up well in some years. I’m sure it’s a weather issue, but I don’t know what that issue is. Sherwood size also varies somewhat from year to year which I think is related to crop load. Last year I had fewer fruit and they were fairly large. This year the crop was huge and the fruit was much smaller.