Yes. There are some people who keep jujube in large pots.
Would a jujube tolerate heavy artful pruning to be kept ultra mini? I know fruit will be minimal, but Iām thinking of adding some fruit trees for fun in front of a garden bed and I figure if it makes a handful of fruit, thatās a win.
And follow up- since no one lists the rootstock they are on, Iām guessing itās all the same? Does anyone see why it wouldnāt tolerate a low heading cut like other fruit trees?
In China, some orchards they top the jujube trees to feet tall and still got load of fruits.
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The problem is probably less with the āheavyā and more with the āartful.ā
Jujubes seem to be pretty tough trees. Grafts will readily flower the same season they are grafted. Iāve taken a heavy hand to mine with the pruning saw ā taking more than half of a tree off repeatedly ā to no real ill effect as far as health and productivity are concerned.
The problem is that they are sort of unpredictable in where they will choose to put new growth (new primary shoots) after being pruned. There are rules out there, but I find them a little hard to follow and not that reliable: Jujube Training and Pruning Basics | New Mexico State University - BE BOLD. Shape the Future.
If you are not concerned with where the growth appears (because you are just going to head it down every season, like coppicing) then my guess is that it wonāt matter much and you should be fine. But if you are aiming to use pruning to train the jujube tree into a specific shape, accomplishing it is not as easy and intuitive as it would be with an apple or pear tree.
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Thank you. Iāll think about this and look at that link.
Does anybody have any experience propagating jujube rootstocks? I grafted 5 Jujubes, but got a lot of bleeding in the unions which has, so far, stopped 3 taking. I suspect all 5 will fail and I thought I would use them as rootstocks for next year by stooling them. Has anybody tried this/ any other propagation methods? And more importantly, does anybody know how I can stop/ avoid the grafts bleeding when I regraft next year?! My hunch is I grafted too early (18th of April in southern France), they had just broken bud with leaves roughly 1-2cm in size.
Root cuttings and pot them up individually to get a new plant. Try not to graft when your soil is saturated with water or during a long rain period. I usually graft my jujube like in early May with a week of sunny weather in the 70s with not too much rain
Tony
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Brilliant information! My Jujubes are currently rootstocks, I found a deal on āLiā plants from Italy and cut them below the graft. How much root do you reckon I need? I donāt have a lot to play withā¦ But Iāll give it a crack none the less!
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I usually cut the lateral root to 6 inches then bury about 5.5 inches below ground. The top 0.5 inch above ground will eventually form a sprout. Make sure you water them regularly to keep the pot moist but not water log.
Tony
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Has anyone seen this before or know what it is? Almost all of my Chico fruit have these black spots on them. I donāt know if it is a pest that caused it or if it is some sort of fungus, but we have had so much rain this growing season.
It might be insects - looks like what squash bugs do to my fruit.
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Most of my other jujube grafts leafed out within a week or two. Iād almost given up on this graft when I still didnāt see any growth about 2 months later. But then I noticed callusing at the cut tip of the scion and now a new bud is forming there (circled in the picture). The new growth would typically come from a dormant bud below the base of a side branch (where the arrow is pointing). Iāve never seen another fruit tree graft grow from the cut end at the top of the scion like this one. Just another example of how jujubes are special.
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I have jujube graft that was done in July that didnāt leaf out until late Spring the following year. Now I donāt remove jujube grafts unless the scions turn all dark and shrivel up.
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Iāve had that too, but what made this graft unique to me was the fact that it started growing from the cut end rather than a dormant bud. Maybe the picture doesnāt really show that clearly. Iāve seen before with jujube branches Iāve pruned that there will be new growth from the exposed cambium at the edge of the cut rather than at a node below the cut, so maybe this shouldnāt be such a surprise to me.
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Oh well thatās good, since squashbugs do not lay eggs inside fruit, but under leaves.
So these will still be edible, just ugly
Anyway, what is even more weird is when I read some people think it smells like dirty socks. I just think to myself, āwhat in the worldā?
I donāt really notice the flower fragrance of our temperate jujubes (Z. jujuba), but our tropical jujube is very pungent and unpleasant. It could be those people were talking about tropical/Indian jujubes (Z. mauritiana)
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Well that explains it. Iāve heard of some people saying the flowers smell like socks, I suppose thatās the Indian one and not Z. Jujuba. Iāve never had the tropical/indian one, so I have no idea about it.
You have to catch the Z.jujuba flowers at the right time. There fragrance are stronger and weaker throughout the day. Some produce the fragrance early morning, some in the afternoon. Here in Dallas Texas, my Chico is fragrant around 3:00- 4:00 ish pm, but my Honey Jar produces more fragrance in the early morning like 7:00-8:00ish.
But itās a fruity/floral smell to me, very oriental like, and I love it.
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I often graft when they are first waking up- early April here. But they are pretty forgiving and Iāve had takes both early and late into June. I tend to get the most growth out of the early ones though.
Hereās one I grafted in mid April (wood from Katy, one of her seedlings):
Yes, when transplanting a big tree, you could probably start a whole lot of small trees. Iāve grafted scions directly to roots and had some good results. The more root the better- small root sections often fail when I do that, though part of the issue could be the smaller pots Iāve had them in.
Yesterday I had my first fresh jujubes since last fall. Until now, I havenāt found any jujubes from the Southern hemisphere. But yesterday I as at one of my wifeās friends houses and they had some. They got them from Chinatown in Flushing (NYC). The price is a bit eye-watering though, at $24/lb.
They appear to be Dong, or some variant. Those ripen late for me, generally in November. Since now is the equivalent of mid-December in the SH, it seems about right. Iād be shocked if they managed to get ones from the NH to keep 6+ months in this condition (very good). I didnāt have my refractometer with me, but they were good quality.
The temperate ones have a clear artificial grape soda smell to me.
Iāve started going around and re-grafting scions that appear to have failed. In past yearās Iāve done that with āhigh valueā (ones I may not have easy access to get the wood again) grafts which appear to have failed after 1.5-2 months. It doesnāt always work, but at least half the time they seem to take off once grafted again.
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Not sure I understand, do you remove the scion, recut both scion and rootstock and re-wrap? Do you place the graft in the same place or move to another place on the rootstock or a different tree altogether?
Yes, Iāve been taking apart the graft:
Then shaving the scion down a bit until I get to green wood:
Then either cutting the branch down a bit and regrafting, or finding a spot on a different tree if it doesnāt seem suitable.
Last year, I moved one to not just another tree, but a different town. And it took nicely at the new location, survived the winter and seems to be growing now.
Edit: Here is a pic of the graft I was speaking of. It put on decent growth after the 2nd time it was grafted and now, a year later, I am looking forward to it producing.
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