My Bok Jo branch broke from fruit overset this year! It’s still hanging on so the fruit will ripen. I’ll have to prune most of it off, and regraft next year.
Oh no! Hopefully you can graft to a strong rootstock and make a new Bok Jo tree. One of my Bok Jo graft ithis May on a large rootstock grew to 6 feet tall already. Bok Jo is a real vigorous grower for sure.
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It’s actually grafted onto one of my Honey Jar trees. I don’t have room for a full Bok Jo tree. A down side I found is it has really long thorns for me. They look like they could poke my eye out if I’m being oblivious walking around. Did you notice this trait growing Bok Jo at your location?
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Sounds like a seedling.
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What does that mean, not a true variety? Can he graft my jujube scions to his tree, he is thinking of doing the same to his plum, it has not produced fruit.
Exactly. Not a cultivar. Graft it to something else.
Bok Jo thorns haven’t made an impression on me (literally…). Chico is the one with the massive needles. Here’s a pic of one from a rental (first time for Chico fruit as well!). Note the needles along the branch, particularly one in the bottom left and another along the top.
I’ve noticed this too! Maybe it has so much lush foliage that I haven’t noticed the thorns. I tend to pick carefully, knowing that most jujube have at least a few thorns.
I don’t think I’ll get to 150 for a while- it’s only about 100 now. I do have a lot of suckers, seedlings, etc which are in pots, but wouldn’t have enough space to plant them all. If anything, I’ve been spacing them further apart, not closer.
I now put them 10-12 feet apart, so them getting 50’ wide would be quite a trick. And I’ve been trying to keep most of them in the 12’ area. Some are taller, but I’m going to let the harvest play out before chopping them back any more. Next year I need to put a reminder on my calendar to go around and top all the trees in late June. That seems to trigger fruitset, as the tree stops growing and puts the energy into fruit.
I think the most I’ve gotten from any single tree is 10-15 pounds. And some have produced nothing so far. If they all produced 10 pounds, I’d probably need help picking them. I was talking about that with my wife and she said her parents might want to help- they like deals and trees producing “free” fruit is hard to resist. I could either sell them at Farmer’s market, or just give away extras and thin out the less desirable varieties. It would be a good problem to have, compared to a sparse harvest.
Here’s an idea of what the trees look like at various ages:
There are 4 jujube along the left which were planted in June 2021 (4-7’ tall):
The last tree in the row is a Jiro persimmon, with blackberries in the row to the right.
Redlands, planted March 2020:
Honey Jar, planted January 2020 (with Black Sea and Churchpoint grafts):
Note that the Honey Jar is bigger than the Redlands, even though they were planted at the same time. The Redlands (and 2 other trees at this site) came from Chinese Red Date and were ~3/8 caliper. The Honey Jar and Sugar Cane came from Grow Organic and were 5/8-3/4" and are still larger to this day, though the Russia #2 from CRD looks to be catching up.
Chico, planted April 2019 (Extra large size from Burnt Ridge):
So/Contorted from Bay Laurel, planted March 2019:
So/Contorted from Englands (he got it from DWN that year, so it it was effectively the same as Bay Laurel) in March 2019:
The last 2 pics are both So, similar sized, and planted within a few days of each other. But, the first one is growing at a pretty good site and the 2nd one is growing at a great site. I stepped off the size of the 2nd one the other day and it is about 10x13’ wide and about 12’ tall (I cropped a bit of the top in the pic). One of the reasons it is more open is that the branches have been bent down by the weight of the fruit.
I should have taken a pic of a So from 2018 (one year older) at a poor site. It isn’t much bigger than the first tree in the 2021 planting pic. And it would be even smaller if I hadn’t started giving it extra water over the last year.
The other interesting thing to see is how So will form a bush-like structure very easily, while the other jujube trees maintain a stronger central leader.
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Andrew,
Bok Jo had pretty long thorns. The good thing is the deer left them alone .
Btw, check out the thorns on my seedling Tangerine 
.
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Andrew so sorry about your Bok Jo ! Hopefully you can save most of the branch by re-grafting in to your other trees unless you changed your mind because of the thorns.
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It’s a shame that they sold this sort of thing at Home Depot.
I’m reading the beginning of this thread to find out which variety I like to add or graft, there are some pictures of seedling jujubes and they look exactly like the ones from my brother’s yard. Same description too.
Reading about all the thorns made me nervous.
It may have been a grafted tree originally but the graft died before or after it was sold. No one at Home Depot would know the difference.
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Bob
The growth of your jujubes is very impressive. My 3 yr old HJ and SC hardly grow.
My Masaandra planted in 2018 has just started to take off this year and gone over 6 ft tall but is not as lush as yours.
More compost and fertilizer next year.
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After I read more posts from this thread, I think I will move my HJ to a deeper container and in full sun. I will not save the suckers, it tasted like a seedling than a honey jar, big seed, little meat.
Now reading through the thread I can see why my Shanxi Li and GA-866 have been producing even for the first year, I get about 2-3 pounds of Shanxi Li, and about 1lb of GA-866 so far. They are in full sun and I gave them lot of compost. Black Gold from my garden, I really need more of them but I only have 2 large containers now.
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You could graft a truly Honey Jar to your honey jar* tree!
My experience is mostly different. I pick enough Bok Jo that I figured I would remember if it was covered with daggers.
So, I went out and checked and found that this tree did in fact have those daggers. A total of 2 on the entire tree.
Bok Jo Tree:
Bok Jo Thorn (one of 2, both on a small branch off trunk):
There were more small hook-shaped thorns, at the base of many branches. But, these don’t generally bother me when picking, as they are right at the center of the tree, not near the fruit.
It wasn’t just this one- I checked out another Bok Jo in the backyard which is just under half of the tree and very productive. I found 3 long dagger thorns, all of them on the same small branch. The rest of it had very little- just a few small hooks.
I wonder what it is in the growing conditions which make it develop different amounts of thorns.
Not so much for me. When I first grafted the above tree, deer came through at least once and this was one of the only plants hit. I put up deterrents and I think they came back for one more nibble (this was soon after I first grafted it and it had grown 3-4 feet). Evidently Bok Jo makes tasty leaves as well…I haven’t noticed any issues since, but deer don’t generally go in my backyard much and I don’t think I’ve seen them in a year or two. I’d like to think it was the crazy guy yelling and waving a shovel while running at them one time, but they probably stay further into the wooded areas.
Now, I also checked out the Chico and it was covered with those long daggers:
Processing: Chico_thorns_08-27-2022.jpeg…
Here’s a pic of the composted leaves my town puts out. Of course, there are some plastic pieces(which I remove) and twigs (which I ignore) in it.
Also, make sure the in-ground ones get enough water. I suspect that it was the lack of water which kept them from growing at the rentals with the poor soil (not enough water was retained for the trees). Since I’ve watered and top-dressed to help hold in the water, it has been better.
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I do not want to use town compost. Although it consists of leaves and twigs, etc. I don’t know what else is in there. I may be a bit paranoid but it’s me.
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Not to make you any more paranoid, but do you really know what is in the Home Depot stuff? 
I guess the safest way is to collect the leaves from your own trees and compost them, at least if you have a wooded area. Second best might be if you live in a town that makes everyone put their leaves by the curb in the paper bags. Then, you could go around picking up bags from yards do you think would be reasonably safe, either by knowing them, or through observation. One of the towns I have rentals in makes people put out bags, and I have collected them in the past, Though mostly it was for insulating figs.
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I read about you collecting bags. My neighbors would happily giving those dry leaves to me. Where will I put them? That’s the problem of people like me with a small yard 
I have a tiny yard, 1/8 of an acre. I used to have 4 64x bins of worm compost, now I only have 2. My fruit trees are closely planted. I have roughly 70+ fruit trees. That’s on top of 160 roses, and over 100 peonies.
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