Ok. Cracking I will. Thanks for the suggestion.
I got a pair of vise grips today (yes, I’m not the guy who has every tool, other than every gardening tool 
). Of course, I had to try it out right away and met with pretty good success (compared to before). I did 10 and got:
3 nearly perfect
3 slight damage
2 very damaged
1 complete destruction
1 shriveled (poor pollination?)
How damaged can the seed be and still germinate? Roughly how long should it take? I know, I’m being impatient by checking them again, only 4 days in (unless they are as speedy as beans…).
[quote=“Sas, post:147, topic:5823”]
You will find that many are not even viable, as much as 70 % could be bad seeds.
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I guess I got good pollination to have only 10% bad. When I destroyed twice this many the other day, I think there were only 1 or two shriveled ones, so this seems pretty representative. Maybe having a dozen (or more) varieties on the same tree helps with pollination.
There were actually 3 as of a few days ago on that graft. I ate one which had just started to color (maybe 15% brown), as there was a potential frost that night. It wasn’t bad (light, crisp, moderately sweet), but I need to let one ripen better for a good comparison. It looks like we got past the potential frost, so I’ve got at least ~8 more days, before it is forecast to get close again. I think that should be enough for both the elongated ones on the graft and the large one on the new tree to ripen.
Update- adding pic of pliers (Vise Grips). $19.97 for the pair at Home Depot. I like the loop at the end, which makes it easier to tighten than a knob. I slipped a spoon (a screw driver would probably be better) into it and used it like a lever, which was much easier on the wrists.
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you implying that you don’t have autumn b and winter d? And that you’re worried it may no longer be available and that those cultivars are destined to oblivion?
Thanks, Bob for the pic.
I will let the last few Shanxi Li hang as long as possible. I will use their seeds to practice cracking.
I managed to finally get an Autumn Beauty, but not a Winter Delight. No nursery has it these days.
As new varieties become available, what’s available today at your local nursery might not be in five years, or might have a name change perhaps. Couldn’t find any literature about Massandra, so I decided to add it to my trees.
oops, my reply to @snowjunky was actually for you… and quoting what @snowjunky posted as a possible lead to winter delight.
Yes Thank You, that same generous member sent me some wood too, but with my limited grafting skills, I wasn’t able to get any grafts to take. I got lucky finding the last autumn beauty among Shirley’s last few trees before closing shop.
I’m eternally thankful to that generous member who tried to help.
So surprise to find a Sugar Cane on the tree. It is so small, about the size of a cranberry or a small grape. No wonder I missed it all season 
Here is Sugar Cane (0.1 oz) comparing to Shanxi Li (0.6 oz).
Honey Jar is a bit bigger than Sugar Cane, not by much.
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That looks too small to be a Sugar Cane. I hope you didn’t get the rootstock there, its not uncommon since the stock can easily outgrow the graft on jujubes
Scott,
This tree I got from Burnt Ridge. I can still see the interstem grafting on it. I got SC and HJ from BR. Both are interstem grafted. I have a Shanxi Li from Tree of Antiquity. It’ s grafted directly to a rootstock, without interstem.
I hope my SC is not a rootstock. It’s the first fruit. My first HJ is bigger than that.
I asked before if sugar cane was as good as honey jar now the question is how do Coco and Tigertooth stack up compared to honey jar for fresh eating?
Dainel ( or Daniel?),
I have little real experience eating HJ and SC. I’ll leave it to someone like @tonyOmahaz5, @BobVance, @scottfsmith, @Bhawkins, @jujubemulberry,et al to answer you.
I have learned that I prefer Shanxi Li half ripened than fully ripened. The fully ripened one lost some of its crunchiness which I love.
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personally, hj is better than both, with coco being better than tigertooth
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I just ordered second HJ last night.
What is your top 3 jujube varieties taste-wise?
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Sugarcane are twice to three times larger than what you’re showing in that picture and elongated. They are among the first of my jujubes to ripen and they’re finished by mid to late August on my tree. I don’t wait too long to let them ripen, they usually have a ltlle brown when I pick them and they are crispy sweet and juicier than other varieties I have. In sweetness they rank second to Honey Jar, but are larger almost 1 1/2 to twice larger. My trees are relatively young, but this is what I noticed so far.
I only have five trees that I could currently say something about, the rest are too small to really comment on. But I had a couple of fruits from both the Coco and Black Sea and they are both very promising.
Which ones do I like in order? I like them all, but when fresh and in order I like the Honey Jar then So, followed by SugarCane then Li, Lang and finally TigerTooth. TigerTooth appears to be improving this year, but the order of what I like the most when eaten fresh remains the same.
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really hard for me to choose just a top 3. There seems to be a multi-way tie… as there are too many!
moreover, an expectedly smaller li(and many other varieties)which ripens in late october or november here in vegas-- it is radically better-tasting than the typically plum-sized ‘breba’ li which ripened earlier in july— from the same tree and the same year! So there is also a time element to the experience, and a regional one as well, as many people growing theirs in other states will say that contorted’s and sc’s are pretty good, and while i agree they are when harvested later in the year, they are not as good compared to many others when grown here and when harvested at the same time. So it isn’t just an individual preference of the taster, but also the individual preference of the cultivar with regards to time of year and/or region it is being grown [quote=“mamuang, post:161, topic:5823”]
I just ordered second HJ last night.
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always a popular choice, as many people i have held taste-tests for will agree it is up there.
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@jujubemulberry I know you grow many different varieties so for fresh eating in combination with early production would you agree with Sas that honey jar is the best flavored or is there another early one you’d say top it.
i actually prefer a prime li over a prime hj.
li has some tart to it which makes it more interesting than hj. The huge caveat however, is that many people who’ve tasted our hj’s and li’s seem to prefer the delicate crispness and mild flavor of hj. Could be due to hj being very sweet and not having any apple flavor which make it somewhat unique.
prime li’s, on the other hand, are at least as sweet as hj, but present as dense apples with the tart reminiscent of apples .
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Last year we went to a pick your own farm and picked a bunch of Li Jujubes and stored them in the fridge. They just kept getting sweeter everyday which I thought was unusual.
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