I’ve lost a BIG Chico, half of a Contorted, a Massandra, a Mango Dong Zho on its own roots and a few seedlings. Most of mine came through fine. Would have never expected to loose the big Chico and half the contorted.
1 Like
3 Likes
My jujube in the ground, planted shortly after the polar apocalypse, still has no budding or leaf action, yet the bark is very much alive.
3 Likes
So does new HJ growth always curl? Or is it just particularly susceptible to curling when the plant is not happy about something (too dry, too wet, too cold, too hot, etc).
Until you said that, I was going to tell you to graft some more productive and tastier varieties on.
On an encouraging note, while most of my 2nd year jujubes have produced 0 fruit (maybe 2-3 fruit at the high end), I did have a location where all 3 trees actually produced a decent amount in year 2. That location seems to have very good soil, and gets rain runoff from a long stretch of road, so the trees sized up very quickly, one getting to ~12 feet during year 2. I didn’t measure how much fruit I got, but it was 1.5-2 pints of Honey jar, with maybe 1 pint of So (smallest tree, only 8’) and 0.5-1 pints of Li (the largest tree, but it hasn’t produced at all in other locations, so I was happy to get any production). So, I would view fast growing trees as an encouraging sign of impending production.
On the negative, I’d never bet on GA866 producing. As it is, you’ve got a chance to taste Shanxi Li.
I’ts not a good sign, but I did have a couple jujubes which leafed out very late. One in August and another at the start of September. These were at a different rental, where the soil was very dry. I’m not sure exactly why, but if I dug down a few hours after the rain, only the top inch or so would be wet, with the lower layers bone dry. Something wrong with the absorption. Of course, I planted jujubes there and that is where they took until Aug/Sep. I think the August one came after a large rainstorm (hurricane?), which may have gotten enough water to them.
So, if you haven’t already, I’d suggest giving the pots a good soaking and see if that is enough to get them started. Obviously no guarantees, but I think it is worth risking a bit of water to try 
1 Like
If she has those pots outside here in Texas they are soaked EVERY DAY!!! Our water table is up around our knees right now!!!
1 Like
I didn’t realize that- without Weather Chanel on TV (it’s been a while since I’ve used cable), I miss the national weather and just see what the next 10 days have for me. At least until something is big enough to make national headlines like the ice storm in Tx.
Depending on the pot size, they could still dry out pretty quick in the Texas sun. But, if they aren’t dry to the touch, I’m not sure what else you could do for them, other than wait and see.
1 Like
We’re not sure that even exists anymore!
1 Like
Texas tropical rain forest?
1 Like
Hello people, finally I had time to seat and read all. I was absent for some time from this forum (it’s first time), and now succeeded to read all. So I’ll post some photos and tell you about my efforts.
For the start I must say that I have received some scions and seeds few weeks ago. Big thanks to @k8tpayaso and @jujubemulberry. Some scions were already started to leaf out but I grafted them as well. As I still don’t have big enough rootstock trees all of my grafts were done on tigertooth tree. It’s bigger than my shanxi li, and I’m not so much impressed with it. Also I receive some scions from a friend, and he got them from Ukraine. I was ecstatic at that time. I recieved sihong, r4t3,vegas booty,koktebel, kitaiski 60,kitaiski 93, chico (not sure 100%),some labelled as pear shaped (probably lang) and shanxi li. Except shanxi li all of them are grafted on that tree. I made total of 27 grafts, or in other words every single branch I could reach from the ground. Maybe I exaggerated. I used whip and tongue, cleft and bark graft and have at least 3 grafts of each variety with different technique , so I’ll have more chance for success.
Still nothing of them. It’s almost 3 weeks now.
Today I observed it and saw that the tree started to push buds below grafts, don’t know what to do to them. To leave it or not 
At least seeds are doing fine, I check them regularly and they started to sprout.
Here is the photo of that tree
Also you can see 4 seedlings from last year in containers in first row from left to right. There is so (contorted), ant admire, sihong and vegas candy. Only 1 of each. Also have 3 seedlings of unknown origin at sisters place. So at least I’ll have much more trees, and potentially more varieties if those seedlings show different and good characteristics. If not they will be used as rootstock.
Today I read about what bob said
so I topped it little above grafts.
Tried scratch test on some scions and few looks dried, some looks ok. Will see what will happen. But until I have decent rootstocks I gave up on grafting jujubes. Maybe tigertooth is not good for grafting, maybe the time wasn’t good but I think it was, and who knows what else. All of the cutted branches are in moist soil so will see if there will be some rooting, they will be thrown away anyways.
I had some thoughts about what Bob said. He have good point. But while grafting I cut branches a lot, some which were about 1+meter, or 3 feet, to few inches only so the tree can push only to graft union. So there are no much places where the tree can push nutrients elsewhere.
Also want to share to you my sistem of tagging, noticed that was mentioned before. I use beer can, or some other can, and cut it to stripes with scissors. Then I use letter punch set and punch names on those stripes. If I have lots of tags to make and no time for that then I use some nail or something similar and just write it on.
And then I attach them with wire. So there is no possibility for wind to blow them, or something else. Before this I used some plastic tags and they tend to break of after some time. Because plastic become brittle from the sun, and the writing disappear after some time as well. This way that can’t happen.
Sorry for the longer post.
8 Likes
I swear it’s monsoon season up here in DFW. 6-8 inches in 1 week. I did a scratch the potted HJ along trunk, found green so I’ll continue to wait. All my others are flowering now. Unfortunately low pollination with all this rain and wind.
2 Likes
Don’t give up yet. I have had them push long after I thought they were duds. As to the shoots I’m not sure what to tell you. I would keep the tigertooth growth to a minimum but I know you want to preserve the tree. Jujube grafts will grow along side a sucker growing but if the graft takes you’ll want to make sure most the nutrients go to the graft. I get so frustrated grafting jujus. They hate me…
1 Like
For interested parties, I finally decided to do the scratch test and both Jujubes that have not leafed out yet showed green cambium, so I’m hopeful.
4 Likes
When conditions are good/warm, my grafts average about 14 days to leaf out (calculated from several types of fruit- not something specific to jujubes). When things are chilly like this year, it can take far longer. I started grafting in early April and only saw buds break a few weeks ago. So, it was over a month. And I’m still seeing a few more, now that the weather has really warmed up.
I did 99 grafts on established trees in my yard. So far, I’m up to 84 takes (85%). I also did a bit over 60 grafts on similar trees at rental properties. As of last check, I was around 67% on those, but that figure is most likely higher, as I haven’t gotten out to some of them for a week or more (though this time of year is pretty frequent due to the grass needing mowing…).
I’ve often wondered that. So far, I’ve been pinching any new stem growth (the thick ones which become new branches) from under the grafts and leaving the compound leaves (which bear fruit, then drop off in the fall).
Anecdotally, I also ran into an interesting situation a 4 days ago. While I was near 80% at that point, I had one tree with 3 non-growing grafts, all off side branches close to the central leader (the one which grew was closer to the end of a longer branch). The tree being a Tigertooth (something I wasn’t impressed with last year) means that I wanted more grafts to take, so I cut the central leader off and bark grafted another variety on. Today, 3 days later, all 3 of the grafts under that spot have started to break bud. I’m not sure if it just took them a bit longer, or if cutting the central leader gave the tree the kick to start them growing. I guess I didn’t need to bark graft to the CL- I could have just snipped it off and gotten the others growing
Might delay fruit-set for a bit, but jujube keep flowering for quite a while. They’ll outlast the rain.
Jujube aren’t bad. Peaches on the other hand are very frustrating. One year I had 100+ peach/nectarine grafts and had only 1 weak take. I don’t even remember if it lived, as I was pretty tired of them by that point…Compared to that, jujubes are a breeze.
Much more forgiving with their wood too. This winter I went by a rental and noticed that something had snapped the central leader off a small juju, just above the graft union. I wasn’t sure how long it had been on the ground (could have been there for a few week, possible in the snow or freezing conditions. But, I wanted to make more of the variety, so I saved it and made some grafts. So far, several appear to be takes. If I found peach wood on the ground, I wouldn’t even bother to save it, let alone make multiple grafts with it.
1 Like
Obviously they like you more than they like me!!!
1 Like
recent grafts are prone to dieback(over a severe winter) compared to the interstem or rootstock they are grafted to, especially if the graft junction still has cracks and crevices. Even here in vegas, i have had grafts that didn’t leaf out despite leafing out on the year of grafting.
conversely though, i had grafts that didn’t leaf out on first year, but leafed out the second year…
these jujus are just inscrutable sometimes!
1 Like
we can always try and try again, until you get many( if not all) juju cultivars established on your patch of mother earth
1 Like
Raf,
I recalled you mention a one year delay of your jujube graft leafing out. That gave me hope so I left my not-leafing-out grafts on the tree. They still were dead, 2and 3 years later!!
I think @BobVance is right that I grafted too many on a tree. Grafts that were dead the following year often were the ones grafted on small branches or twigs.
This year I did only 16-17 grafts. After a month, only 3-4 of them started to show signs of life. This was after we had temp 70 F and warmer for over a week now.
The grafts that are taking are good-sized scionwood. Any skinny or short wood (shorter than 3” ) have not pushed buds. I know people can graft jujubes with a single budwood. I obviously not one of them. 
I have had good success with skinny wood on apples, pears, plums, etc.
1 Like
We finally had a whole day of no rain!!! And later in the day the sun came out so I got to make use of it! I only had to pull the mower out of the ditch once when james thought he could make it over to higher ground and buried it up in the mud… 
. So the jujube part of this is that I got out my weed eater to trim up the foot high grass around some of my trees. The little Massandra that died had suckers around it that I planned to let one grow to graft to and dig the others if possible. This is what I found growing around Massandra.
I think this taller sucker may be Massandra!!! I think I may have found the graft line…maybe. But these two suckers are very different from each other. Y’all check out the pictures and see if you agree with me. If so, I’m really excited because this “sucker” is already twice as tall as my stunted Massandra.
Smaller sucker and thorns: very short internodes, small light green leaves, spikes for thorns.
Larger “sucker” and thorns: long internodes, wider, darker green leaves, “delicate” thorns.
And maybe this is the graft line with the Massandra growth coming off at the top right.
What you think?
4 Likes
Here’s my 2021 Jujube data for in-ground grafts on established stocks:
| Size | Grafts | Takes | Pct |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thin (<= 2mm) | 12 | 9 | 75% |
| Medium Thin (3mm) | 19 | 15 | 79% |
| Medium (4mm) | 26 | 23 | 88% |
| Medium Large (5mm) | 34 | 32 | 94% |
| Large (6-7mm) | 35 | 31 | 89% |
| Large-Very Large (8mm) | 13 | 10 | 77% |
| Very Large+ (>=9mm) | 18 | 10 | 56% |
| 157 | 130 | 83% |
Notes on data- excludes a few recent grafts (no time yet to see if they took), Also excludes 4 grafts where I forgot to include the thickness. There could still be a bit of movement in the numbers- hopefully a few more will break bud over the next few weeks.
From this data, I would conclude that thin wood lowers success rate some, but not by as much as very thick wood hurts success rate. You want the Goldilocks wood…Not too big…not too small…just right.
It’s interesting that the 2016 apple results I posted above (post 2109) were a bit different:
So in the 2016 apple data, Medium-Thin and Medium had the most success, while in the 2021 jujube data, Medium-Large was the leader. I have a few possible explanations:
1.) The apple study had a very small sample size (36 vs 157 grafts). The clearest result from it is that when the wood gets too big, the success goes way down. The 2021 jujube data also shows that same result.
2.) Maybe there is a difference in optimal size between apple and jujube wood (jujube being slightly larger, but still not too large).
3.) The categories (ie thin, medium, very large, etc) are subjective and my categorization may have changed over the last 5 years.
To make this meaningful to others, I’ve included an estimate of each size in parenthesis). This is something I came up with by classifying some scions, then measuring to see how wide they are. I don’t measure each scion as I graft them (when I first started in 2013, I did it for a dozen or two, but skipped that for the next few thousand grafts ). Even when I did measure, the results were often like “4.5-7mm”, as not every scion is perfectly round.
I tried to take a look at it based on the number of buds, bud I haven’t been as careful about counting buds and only have that metric for a bit under 75% of my grafts. Even so, it doesn’t seem that a single bud harms my success rate, as I used one bud 44% of the time and the success rate was slightly above the overall average.
| Buds | Grafts | Takes | Pct |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Bud | 71 | 60 | 85% |
| 2 Buds | 31 | 27 | 87% |
| 3 Buds | 10 | 8 | 80% |
| 4 Buds+ | 6 | 4 | 67% |
| No data | 43 | 34 | 79% |
| 161 | 133 | 83% |
What I think does hurt my success rate is if the scion is so short that I can’t really hold it to cut. Like the one in this pic. I only had 3 like that and was 1/3 in terms of take rate. So one bud is fine, but I need a bit of hand-hold.
One thing to consider. If I had a stick with 10 buds, even if the space between the buds wasn’t all that much (like the below pics), I think I would do OK, as long as I made each wedge before separating the bud from the rest of the stick. That would leave only the last bud with nowhere to hold, giving you 9 decent grafts (in a situation where you don’t have much wood and want a lot of copies).
One which hasn’t grown so far:
One which did take:
9 Likes