@mamuang @tonyOmahaz5 @BobVance @castanea @k8tpayaso @jujubemulberry
I just ordered a Pan Zao jujube on Etsy. I talked with the seller and it looks like the seller imported the trees from China directly. He has Zhanhua Dong Zao, Pan Zao, and Sugar Sweet Dong Zao. The price is a very reasonable $40.
I wish I had a sunny spot for a pan zao.
I am going to put the pan Zao tree in a pot. If itās the real deal, I will graft it to my other established trees.
It looks like it but I donāt understand the low prices. They are very small trees. Hmmmm
They are 3 years old grafted trees. If the pictures are correct, the diameter of crown is about 1/2-1 inches. So they are not small trees but trimmed to 2 feet size for easier and cheaper shipping.
The price of these trees from Chinese wholesalers is less than $5, but if you consider the cost of shipping and unpredictable risks of custom clearance and USDA inspections, $40 a tree retail is very inexpensive.
Anyway, buying imported trees is a gamble. I took a gamble last year but paid $80. $40 is a much more acceptable price to me.
How are your seedlings doing???
They seem to be growing pretty well under the lights. Theyāve got a long time to go, but Iāll be interested to see how this impacts their growth by winter.
Hereās the ones from last spring, on the NE side of the house.
Iām not sure how many of them will make it through the winter, as some are pretty small. Hereās one that is large enough I will probably cut it and use it as scionwood.
Iāve been taking advantage of the last couple days being over 50F. In addition to a lot of pruning (much more than in past years, at least on apples and pears), I moved a jujube.
I got this tree in fall 2015, in a 1 gal pot. Itās been productive for several years now, but spacing is starting to be an issue, as it is in a row with several jujubes and pears, all set at 4ā spacing. I got rid of a very large, very non-productive hardy kiwi vine, which opened up some space in another part of the yard.
Hereās what the spot looked like, after I extracted the Black Sea jujube.
A lot of the work was done by using a hose to wash the dirt off the roots. Though I also used some loppers to chop the roots off when they were too long, as I didnāt want to have trouble planting it again.
Hereās the result:
Note all the sticks on the ground. Those are prunings from the kiwi vine, both this year and from past years. Iāve just used them as mulch.
The new site doesnāt have that much more space (instead of 4ā, it is more like 6-7ā). But that makes quite a bit of difference. I also like being able to pick the fruit by standing on the 4-5ā tall wall. The tree was about 10ā tall when transplanted.
I did break off a couple roots, which Iāve saved for grafting.
The total time to transplant it was about 3 hours yesterday, plus a bit of extra time today to fill in the pit that was left at the original location.
You have been busy, Bob. I have not done any pruning for fear that temp will drop to a single digit in the near future and I could have done more damage by pruning too soon. Right or wrong, thatās the reason my lazy self told me 
I hope not. Given that the 10 day forecast goes out to Feb 20th and doesnāt go lower than 25F, Iām crossing my fingers we are done with the coldest part of the winter. We could still get a deep freeze, but those are more frequent in Jan, than late Feb and March. Of course, I think there was one night in late Feb last year that got pretty coldā¦
We havenāt even gotten down to the single digits at all this winter. We had one week in mid-Jan with several nights in the mid-teens and one night of +11F. At some of the rentals (closer to the ocean), it was more like +13F or +14F for the seasonās low (so far). Iām hopeful that is as low as it goes. If so, I may be able to get a 2nd (early) crop of figs, if their tops survive.
I am supposed to get 10-11ā of snow this Tues and low temp will be 22 F. I donāt think I am out of the wood yet. Itās still iffy here.
Got the Panzao tree. Shipped barefoot. The seller shipped the tree the day I ordered but it took USPS a couple of days to move it. Pretty large size, cut to about 2 feet long. Looks like the tree is at least three years old. There are 6 nodes of grafted part, hopefully at least 1-2 new branches will pop up this spring. I cut a small part off the main root and it looks quite live and viable.
I donāt remember getting a jujube tree with such few roots. @BobVance is very experienced on this matter. He probably can tell how well this tree will establish.
Good luck. You are the first member I know who grow Pan Zao.
I got a $80 Dongzao tree last year with about same amount of roots. It survived but didnāt grow much.
Thankfully, I donāt think Iāve received any trees with roots like that. Iām feeling better about the one I posted a picture of above (2nd pic in my last post). 
Iām kind of curious if it is better to have little roots and a thick stem, or plenty of roots on a tiny trunk. Iāve had decent roots on a tiny trunk (maybe 3/16") and it also take a long time. When you get up to 3/8", with good roots (like some trees Iāve gotten from Chinese Red Date), they establish pretty quickly.
Hereās a pic of a couple CRD trees from last March, as I was about to plant them at a rental. At least one of them had 1-2 fruit in the planting year and both put on some growth. I think the caliper was in the 3/8-1/2" range.
the latter is definitely better.
while we still use spinosa-type suckers as rootstock, we donāt regard them as valuable anymore(the self-rooted juju snobs that weāve become).
so instead of digging them up ever so gently(like we usually did a decade ago), we now just water the soil they sprung out of to help soften the earth , and carelessly pull them up from the ground. If they end up with hardly any fine root hairs/feeder roots(just like the specimen posted by @Shuimitao) then so be it. Some of them will survive but some wont, Iād estimate 50% chance.
Those that survive will usually be laggards on their first year as @Shuimitao experienced, but will be more vigorous on subsequent yrs
thick roots with hardly any fine root hairs have the advantage of food supply but disadvantaged due to lignification. Thin roots may have less food supply but are more likely to survive if they have fine root hairs, being the most permeable to inward flow of moisture.
important to note that thick juju roots can have tiny lateral outgrowths of fine root hairs along their length which may not be too visible especially if adhered by moisture to the side of the main root.
seems like there are some wispy root outgrowth adhering along the right side of the stumpy root posted by @Shuimitao
I am pretty sure I am not the first one on this forum who tried to grow a pan Zao. Some people bought Pan Zao on Etsy last year but I am not sure how the trees are growing now.
The Dong Zao tree I got last year probably came from the same nursery as my pan Zao because they looked very similar. Pan Zao is probably 1-2 years older.
Hereās a few more pics of the new jujube seedlings.
Some of them have lots of thorns. Hopefully they will outgrow themā¦
Iāve also noticed that some of them have a lot of tiny new leaves- sometimes curled like in the above photo and sometimes just tiny like in this one. In this Texas Tart seedling, you can see how big a difference there is in terms of leaf size.
Iām not sure if this is expected, or if it is a sign of an issue with the light or fertilizer. Iāve been giving them liquid fert about once a week, dissolved into their watering.
Looking great!!!
