Jujubes- Our New Adventure

Your Sherwood doesn’t look like Sherwood. As others have noted, you are lucky they are even jujube trees. The odds that they are correctly named are not good. But if it is Sherwood, you should be aware that Sherwood can be very very slow to come into bearing.

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This is the GA-866

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Lilke your jujubes looks so healthy!! I only wish…
Any suggestions where I can buy healthy and mature jujubes? Possibly from a nursery that has a good reputation.

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ok, i admit i sound like a smart alec posting this, but you can always graft them over with budwood from reputable sources @RoniSWFL

if fruits on scionwood differ from those of your trees, then you can see it half-full instead of half-empty since automatically means you have several cultivars as a result, and not just the ga 866, sugarcane and sherwood scionwood.

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Turns out that cutting the trees down was the easy part. Removing the stumps was a pain in the…everything. It took quite a while and I ran out of daylight to actually plant.

I tried using a reciprocating saw, but evidently cutting roots is a good way to dull the blade (even one made for pruning) and use up the battery (3-4 times…).

They arrived today, 6 days after I ordered. That isn’t too bad, but according to the tracking, the packaged them up on Friday and they didn’t get to Fedex until Monday night. So, they spent quite a while in a box, in Texas (hopefully not in direct sun).

and yes, I should do something about the grass growing in my driveway…

The Contorted tree is pretty nice, maybe 5/8"+, while the Lang is much smaller (maybe 3/8" or a bit more- I’ll check tomorrow). I should have called before ordering to see if they would tell me what sizes the trees were, as the variety doesn’t matter that much, given my plan to graft over them. The Contorted even had 4-5 fruit on it. A couple were just approaching being ripe (1.5 months before they would be here…) and were pretty good- crisp, with ~20 brix. I’m guessing it is the same contorted as the one I have from JFaE. I removed the other fruit, as I’m more interested in the tree getting some good growth, than putting everything in 2-3 fruit.

They weren’t cheap at $69.50 each + $40 shipping, but I should at least get them well established for grafting next spring. And I’ll leave a few lower branches of the original variety, as it’s always good to have a bit more pollination.

My Tigertooth looks to be setting fruit for the first time. It was planted in October 2015, from JFaE.

While that might satisfy the curiosity as to whether the varieties are accurate, I’d suggest grafting some more productive ones on. Particularly Honey Jar and maybe So/Contorted.

It wouldn’t hurt to graft a Sugar Cane to one of the others (pollination and you can still compare the fruit from neighboring trees), as they are relatively productive and have a light, crisp texture (at least mine have).

You could check to see how many flowers they have- if the GA866 has as many or more than the others, it is probably mis-labeled. Mine has been very stingy with flower production and AFAIK has never made even a small fruitlet.

To get some more jujube trees (never a bad idea…) you can check out my thread comparing jujube vendors:

Chinese Red Date is sold out for spring 2021, so I’d suggest Grow Organic or Trees of Antiquity for nice big trees. Just Fruits and Exotics is in Florida, so they are also a good option for you, though they offer slightly smaller (but potted) trees. But if you never really have a dormant season in South Florida, then maybe a potted tree would be good.

The JFaE site says they will have jujube back in stock in October. If you want a potted one now, you should still be able to get it in a 5 gal pot from Bob Wells. But, I think they only have Lang and Contorted in stock.

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totally agree since they seem to be productive even at borderline zones. Sherwood and ga 866 are two of the relatively stingy ones, even here in vegas.

The other day I was mowing the lawn at a rental and noticed 2 things:
1- The Honey Jar had quite a few fruit on it. Maybe 15 or more, which is quite a few for a 3rd year plant here (from Grow Organic in Feb 2018)
2- The HJ tree is getting very little sun- maybe half a day, from mid-morning to early afternoon. Maybe only 5 hours.

Closeup (I count at least 7 fruit in the pic):

Whole tree:

A view of surroundings (facing toward the South-West):

Not only are there shade trees(in several neighbor’s yards), but there is a black walnut nearby as well. It is the thick tree to the top-left of the HJ in the middle pic.

I put several trees at this site, mostly out of curiosity, rather than an expectation of fruit. And who knows, if the neighbors remove some trees, the jujubes will already be well established. A few have done very little (and one died), but I’m pretty happy with the HJ in the middle of the lawn :slight_smile:

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Not a danger. If you like apples you will like these more since they are sweeter than any store bought apple. We like ours half green and half brown when they are crunchy sweet.

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Sherwood had an alternate year cycle for me. Fruit set would be relatively light one year and massive the next year. In the Fall of 2019 it was one of the most productive jujubes I had.

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There’s a big difference between growing jujubes in zone 9 and zone 6. Normally by August 1 my Autumn Beauty and Black Sea fruits would almost be ready. This year neither is even close. Massandra, Maya and Baby Red seem furthest along, although Massandra is being bothered by some pest.

Massandra

Massandra damaged fruit

Maya

Baby Red

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lang seems to be another biennial cultivar here in vegas even though the grafts on it continue to be productive

that sure is red hot :heart_eyes:

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That is what grasshoppers do to some of my fruit.

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I can sure send you some if you run short! :slight_smile:

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Those look like Florida grasshoppers.

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We’ve had such an outbreak that I’m trying to maintain a wide zone of scorched earth around the fruit trees hoping they will stay far away. But I would prefer them to be in Florida! :slight_smile:

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I hate to put a like on that post. Thanks but I’ll decline that offer. Their brothers here don’t need their help…:flushed:

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I can’t agree…I’ve eaten both apples and Jujubes.
Often the apples win in a taste comparison.

Taste preferences are very subjective, but while I think the very best apples are competitive with the better jujubes, average jujubes will beat average apples, and the best jujubes are as good as or better than the best apples.

At most I can eat 3 or 4 apples in one day. At that point I am tired of apples and probably won’t eat any the next day. But I can eat 30-40 jujubes in one day and still want more, and would definitely eat just as many the next day. Of course most jujubes are smaller than most apples, but the difference is that jujube flavors are more interesting. Even the best apples become boring much faster than the best jujubes do.

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I generally put jujubes above apples, but the best apples (Golden Russet, Goldrush, Evercrisp, SweeTango, etc) can be competitive. I will say that I’ve had some apples which tasted pretty good at 10-12 brix (Braeburn comes to mind), but not any jujubes. So if you are watching your sugar, then apples could be the way to go (though hardly sugar-free…).

I just noticed some very similar damage on my Shanxi Li today. It looked like the wound had dried on mine, so it may continue development.

I also noticed some strangely bumpy fruit on the same Shanxi Li (there were several like this):

Smooth on same tree:

My furthest along is the Bok Jo, of more than 30 varieties which have at least some fruit this year. I’ve noticed that some of the later fruit on it turned brown. I’m guessing it reached a point where it was supporting as many fruit as it could. I’m actually glad that a few turned brown, rather than reducing the quality of the rest.

My Sherwood actually has a decent number of fruit. At least on one branch that I bent almost horizontal (maybe 25 on the branch and 10-20 on the rest of the tree). I’m not sure if the bending helped, or if the fact that it is over the corner of my driveway and thus particularly warm. It could also help that it was quite accessible when I was spraying GA3, so it may have gotten more than the rest of the tree . And it did start setting fruit a few days after that spray . I think next year I’ll do the spray with a pump sprayer, rather than a Windex bottle…

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