Jujubes- Our New Adventure

[castanea]

My Chico is more than 18 years old and only about 8 feet tall.

[castanea]

Jin aka Chang is not that flavorful. It’s just OK for eating. I’ve grown it for more than 20 years. I do eat a couple every year, but it’s not in my top 20 jujubes for eating.

[mamuang]

Thanks for your input on Jin. I’ll see how it does here. You never know. Different climate may yield a different result.

[castanea]

Very true. They frequently act differently in different climates. Another possible problem for you is that Jin is usually very tall and vertical.

[jujubemulberry]

probably will top them off at 8’.

Sihong, Coco, Chico, will they ripen in time here, I wonder.

where we’re at, sihong is early to early mid, while coco and chico are generally mid. As @castanea mentioned, chico can be grown as 8’ trees,and may stay that way without having to prune them. Chico uprights can shoot up 5 feet in one season(at least those grafted to sc) here, but has the weird idiosyncrasy of having the inclination to arch its ‘uprights’ downwards. I am actually trying to root a chico stem that conveniently did just that, and just hoping our 113F summers have no negative effects on rooting response, or better yet, actually have a positive effect —

[jujubemulberry]

Some fruit on new growth but very little compared to the amount on the oldest branch. So even though jujus can be precocious as a young tree I think they might prefer using their mature state to produce.

laterals of new growth usually produces just one herbaceous fruiting stems per node. Older laterals have longer and thicker nodes(which are actually fruiting spurs) and will produce more fruiting stems and generally with more complex inflorescences, hence the denser production. Only caveat is that once laterals end up getting shaded, their production of fruiting stems decreases(regardless of the size of the fruiting spur) , and the lateral itself regresses and dies if not getting enough sun. Jujus actually self-prune in this process.
btw, @k8tpayaso, your trees evidently leafed out earlier than ours(we had a cold spring this year, and even had a ‘late’ freeze which destroyed many of our pak berries). You could tell by the size of our chico fruits. Chico tree below is ~9 feet tall at 3 years of age, but tend to get shorter when uprights droop with the fruit load

[mamuang]

Raf,
Cliff England warning about Sihong being late ripening is what concerns me.

[jujubemulberry]

definitely not late, at least where we’re at. Of course quite possible that it will behave how sherwood behaves here when sihong is grown in colder climates. You could refer to our website photos as most of them are date-stamped. Ripened fruits at around July or early Aug are considered early for our locale.

[jujubemulberry]

forgot to clarify, you might see cultivars that we labeled as ‘early’ or ‘mid’ that may be shown ripening in oct or november, but that is because those are subsequent crops, not the first crops

[mamuang]

I count myself lucky if my first crop ripens in time

[mamuang]

Thanks for the info.

My 3” long Jin graft is grafted to a horizontal branch. It will be a while before I could see more growth on it.

[k8tpayaso]

your trees evidently leafed out earlier than ours(we had a cold spring this year, and even had a ‘late’ freeze which destroyed many of our pak berries). You could te

We also had a very cold spring but in saying that our temps always stayed a degree or two above freezing and therefore had no frost since last of February (a good two weeks before our average last frost date. My trees were a few days later this year leafing out but had no frost setbacks so I guess that made them a bit early off the block. It has amazed me this year how fast the fruit has grown after setting. Yes, I think my Chico fruits are bigger than normal at this point. I have good fruit set on Chico, adequate on Honey Jar and the remainder of my trees are very skimpy on fruit. Even those that set a fair amount have had a lot drop and have very few fruit. I’m hoping for a better late crop.

the lateral itself regresses and dies if not getting enough sun. Jujus actually self-prune in this process.

I have a lot of blind wood on my HJ this year. The foliage is thin and up high on the canopy. The uprights leading to the top are quite bare and many laterals did not leaf at all. All my jujus are in full sun…no shade at all.

North side of tree

East side…very bare side

Katy

[jujubemulberry]

probably just a temporary(and inscrutable)phase your tree is going through and hopefully will bounce back. I see a fair amount of fruits on your hj, but i agree-- not as densely fruiting as typical hj’s, even those in more northerly latitudes where trees don’t get as much sun as yours.

not sure if you had plenty of rain, as too much water dilutes/leaches the soil which may affect fruiting,and perhaps also influenced by the rootstock. Unlike conventional fruits, nurseries use random seedlings/suckers for jujus, so you might want to take some hj stems and graft to your abundantly producing chico to see if there will be a difference in production. Jujus may be popular, but still quite unknown, at least here in usa. Being easy to grow here with hardly any input other than soil, water, and sun, it is easy to overlook what we probably should oversee.

so speaking of rootstock, i admit it sounds intrusive, but am compelled to volun-tell @BobVance, @Chills, and @tonyOmahaz5 to consider propagating suckers from rootstock of their most productive juju trees which seem to support fruit production in their respective locations. Those bloodlines may just be the ticket to solve the borderline or scarce production of jujus in cold/wet regions of usa. It is virtually impossible to control rain, humidity, wet soils, winter cold, amount of sunlight during growing season, etc, and impossible to change the genetics of scionwood, but those issues may be ameliorated by using rootstock which seem to do very well planted outside of tri-state AZ-CA-NV.

probably good to sort out the other variable to which we graft the scions on. So everyone here please keep everybody posted with both good/bad findings, am confident our e-group will figure things out over the years

[k8tpayaso]

not sure if you had plenty of rain,

On the contrary we have been very dry. My Li has tended to be this way also but the other seem normal foliage but very little fruit. I have not put any fertilizer down the year. No manure. I have kinda wanted to lately but it is soooo dry here and having to water everything.

[jujubemulberry]

you could try watering them next spring and check for a response. If remember it right, Bob waters his trees pretty well at dfw area.

it is still possible that your trees are merely going through a gestation phase, being relatively young.

[k8tpayaso]

They get watered along with everything else but when you are hand watering trees it’s hard to give them what they need. I’m sure you experience that… it’s just been a really strange weather year.
@Livinginawe had trouble with his not being productive until he fertilized and used azomite. I’m not sure if our eastern soils have the mineral content that these trees might really like. Just wondering.

[jujubemulberry]

yeah, it could also be the weird weather. Also noticed that even budwood seems to be affected by a ‘long winter’, as those that have been refrigerated too long seem not interested in developing uprights, and just growing a few deciduous fruiting stems.

[Bhawkins]

I’m surprised the rabits haven’t killed the trees. I used to just use the tree guards, 10” or so, but this year that wasn’t enough, so I use 24” chicken wire from Loews to creat a guard.

The trees would really like some mulch. Yours eventually will be ok but it’ll take a couple extra years.

How many jujubee trees do you have?

[k8tpayaso]

I’m surprised the rabits haven’t killed the trees.

I’m surprised I have not had more problems from deer and rabbits, raccoons in my grapes etc but I do have a pack of dogs and some very predator cats that enjoy birds, rabbits, and squirrels for lunch. I also live very rural so there is a wide range of land for grazing, etc. That is not to say they will not zero in on this area when the fruit is more prolific but at present I have not had trouble with bark eating rabbits.

I have 11 cultivars in the ground and the oldest one for me is on third leaf but the Chico that I have had almost two years is definitely my “oldest” tree and is doing best production wise. I do have a couple of other cultivar grafts growing.

There is mulch around those trees (not nearly enough) but the Bahai grass thrives in the mulch. This is a Bahai dream world. Short of landscape fabric (MIGHT work) or Roundup on a biweekly basis there is no fighting it. I have gotten the number of a local tree service and am supposed to call them today to inquire of bulk wood chips. However, there are not enough wood chips in the world to keep the Bahai grass from coming up through them.

Katy

[Bhawkins]

Sounds like you’re doing everything right! I didn’t know about Bahai grass, Bermuda like I have here in Dallas is controllable. And your dogs sounds great; my 13 year old Bichon, while he’s my best friend, his rabbit chasing days are over.

In my mulch “rows”, which get sprinkler water 2-3 times a week, I get heavy crops in the 2nd leaf. The soil test from Texas A&M showed my nitrogen and phosphorous were non existent so I added those. My other jujubees planted in the yard, which ea get a 2 cubic foot bag of mulch ea year, seem to take 3 years to begin producing heavily

Yeah, the Chico grows like a weed here