Jujubes- Our New Adventure

Those jujubes are always hit or miss. The best way to find cultivar name of something you buy in the grocery store is to check with that farm. Google them and send them snail mail or an email. When I was curious about blackberries, I did that and I got a list of cultivars and their season map showing which one I bought based on month.

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I am planning to grow 10 jujube trees of honey jar and sugacane espalier on my 110 feet long and 6 feet tall metal pool fence. I will use Velcro to tie the lateral branches at 2 feet, 4 feet then 6 feet. The row of jujube trees will be 11 feet apart and 18 inches away from the fence for good air flow. I asked Chatgpt to create a photo of the productive espalier jujube trees line. It is look great with all the fruits and also make a nice fence screen . What do you think?

Tony

Sample of the type of fence that I have from S&W fence.

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And you’ll have the thorns for a little bit of extra security!

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Tony,
Chat clearly had no clue what jujubes were :grin:

Look like you will do 3 tiered espalier. My jujubes throw out long canes/branches. So, 11 ft apart from one tree to another may be a bit close?

Are yougoung to use all own-rooted trees? One of my grafted jujubes died after 6 years (looked to be a delated grafting compatibility.)

I admit after all these years, I still don’t get a hang of pruning jujube, it will be good for me to see how you will prune sides branches (off the main espaliered canes). Look forward to see your finished product.

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I grew out 25 seeds of each Honey jar X Sugarcane and Sugarcane X Honey Jar. I will choose 5 vigorous seedlings of each cross. It will take several years to accomplish this. I may have to pruning quite often.

Tony

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You are going to retire soon so you’ll have all the time in the world.

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Hi! Have you had a chance to try any Dae Sol Jo fruit yet?

I’ve found 11 feet to be pretty reasonable spacing, even without hard pruning. I started out with most at 5, then started doing at least 10. Now, I do 12, if I have plenty of space. Of course, in the new yard, I still did half a dozen at 5’, just to see if I can keep them at that spacing with pruning. Most of the others are at 10’, with a few at 15’ spacing.

It just so happened that one of the pics I took today gives you a good view of the 5’ jujube row(2nd row from right in pic):

While I don’t think spacing is the issue, I’m not at all sure you’ll be able to nicely espalier them. Jujube branches can be pretty hard and they don’t always make a branch where you want it. At a minimum, you should be able to prune them as tall spindles and get good production. But, I’m not sure it will be the perfect 2/4/6’ layers or be as decorative as you hope for.

I’m not sure if this was only directed to Tippy, but I’ve been harvesting DSJ for 5+ years. I recently found out that it is at least 99% (possibly 100%) the same as Li based on genetic marker testing. It isn’t particularly surprising, as the fruit has been very similar.

Initially, I thought it was a bit better and more productive than Li. But, that was based on one tree, where DSJ is grafted onto a GA866. Given how GA866 produces almost zero fruit, I think that may have left other varieties on the tree more energy, which improved their fruit. Since then, I’ve had a couple other DSJ grafts on other trees which don’t really impress me with either quality or quantity, similar to Li.

Here’s a pic of the DSJ graft on the GA866, which shows how productive it is.

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Some animal is helping me conduct a girdling experiment. Over the winter, a 10 year old Sherwood (4-5” diameter trunk) was completely girdled. The girdling went down to the root flare.

I saw it before digging the tree up for transplant, so it is still in the same location as normal. The only difference is that I cut more scion wood from several grafts than I would have otherwise, as I figured it was a goner.

But, so far, the tree looks completely fine. I know jujubes are sometimes partially girdled to improve productivity (keeping the energy from going back down to the roots, trapping it in the branches, where it can instead make fruit).

I still think that this level of girdling could be fatal, but I will be watching to see if it puts out one last crop of jujubes.

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Thanks @BobVance for answering @CatBui for me.

I am surprised that you grow jujubes at 5’ apart. To me, it is too close. Are those metal stake? If so, what’s the reason to stake jujubes?

By the way, the color of the sky in your picture was beautiful.

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Thank you, BobVance.

In the foreground on the left, those are 1/2” metal conduit. But that is for blackberries. Even erect varieties benefit from them, though they only need tying in one or two spots, unlike semi-erect ones like Triple Crown which need more attention. The jujubes are just above the left tip of the raised bed (newly planted raspberries).

But, yes the jujubes do have metal posts. I use 1” conduit or chain link top rail (10.5’, 1 3/8” diameter) for jujubes. A few reasons:

1.) I’m transplanting big trees and having a stake helps them not topple over, both initially and once they are leafed out (catching the wind). Even being careful, I lost a lot of root during the transplant process, especially on some of the big ones.

2.) I haven’t always used posts and have had jujubes topple over. It doesn’t happen that often and usually takes a pretty big storm, but is annoying, so it is easier to add one at the start, when the hole is already dug.

3.) Cliff says so :slight_smile:

Thanks- even as colorblind, I thought it was a high-color sunset. :slight_smile:

I forgot you are color blind. The sky in the pic was beautiful.

I should have read Cliff’s recommendations 4-5 years ago. I have not staked my jujubes or buried jujube graft unions underground. I have a few seedlings in pots but also forgot to take scionwood this past winter. Thus, wasting another year.

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Bob,

Did you dig all the jujube tree by hand or you rent some digging equipments to moved them.

Tony

Normally graft union is above the soil level but for jujubes should it be buried for root suckers to be the same as the scion? What are your thoughts if I forgot this last year when I planted them- mound soil to burry the union?

Sounds like it could work. But, I generally plant with the union above ground. Even if it would be nice to have self-rooted trees, I haven’t generally been doing it.

For the first few weeks, I dug alone, by hand. Then I decided I wasn’t going to get done before things leafed out (moving 2-3 trees per day). I hired a few guys to help me dig and bring the trees over with their truck/trailer. They also had a small backhoe. We tried using that at first, but it really wasn’t powerful enough to just scoop entire trees up. All he could do is rip off some roots…So, we mostly did it the same way I did, but with 2-3 guys. We used more 3-4 tined hoe and digging fork, but still used the hose a lot.

The backhoe was sometimes useful when the tree was 80% dug. We’d use a rope and the backhoe to pick up the tree a bit, showing what roots were still connecting it.

In the end, I moved most of the jujubes. I still have a few left to either give away or move in the fall. I wasn’t able to move all the apples I had planned to (and I had planned to move far fewer of them than jujubes). Jujubes have much tougher roots and took transplant much better. Apples were a bit further along in coming awake and lost even more root in the transplant process. I think I probably killed the last 3-4 apples I moved, while it’s possible that none of the jujubes (of the 40 or so that I moved) will die.

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Your going to have a ton of rootstock to come up from all them roots you cut

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I planted ten or so seeds this winter and only one avoided damping off. But it’s already flowering… is that normal?

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That is normal. It is a cross of a brand variety or just a sour seedling trying to grow out to graft.

Tony

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Saved a pocketful of seeds only from my favorite fruit. I have some hope it will be good! But will probably graft onto it too.

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