it does look like autumn b in shape. Thought i’d ask, are its stems thorny?
I’ll have to look but I don’t remember seeing thorns. I’ll update because I think my mind is trained to forget the thorns…although they do reach out and touch on occasion!
What about yours?
Yes, there are thorns. They look like the thorns on my AB. They slant distally like SiHong thorns.
the thorns were quite slight, but the stems were slight themselves, apart from having been crushed and tattered… Still waiting to see new growth and what the stems and thorns look like
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The thorns on mine are very aged looking… fragile looking and the color of the gray wood they are on. Looks as if they would snap off with little stimulus. While the thorns on my AB are red like the wood they are on.
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I am starting to see some evidence of that this year … my original planting has not enough sun and I have been getting very few fruits. I put some in sunnier spots a few years ago, those trees are fruiting a lot better. My Xu Xhou should have a fair number of fruits this year.
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Question for any jujube experts. My Shanxi Li, which is third year in the ground, had plenty of flowers but only one fruit has set. Normal for this age tree?
No expert but jujubes tend to be fair finicky about cross pollination. The trees should be fairly close to one another to work well and sunlight seem to play important part.
On top of that in my experience Shanxi Li is stingy when it comes to setting fruit. Then, if your other varieties are not in close proximity and amount of sun is inadequate, fruit setting on Shanxi Li would be an issue.
My Shanxi Li planted in 2016. They set fruit but not many. However, it had more than one fruit at 3 years old last year. It had a few dozens.
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@growjimgrow i think that weather conditions are very important. The first year after planting mine shanxi li had few fruits, and it was close to tigertooths. Next year I replanted it to more sunny position and it had many flowers but none of fruit set. This year is full, with flowers and fruits also. And still growing.
To mention that now between tho jujubes are about 15m, about 30 feet.
This summer was very sunny,last one was very rainy and I think that is it main reason for heavy fruit set now.
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After reading all the raving here about jujubes, I had to find out what all the fuss was about. I purchased a Sugarcane from Cliff in April, along with a couple of scions of Honey Jar and R4T3. Since the tree was bare root and rather thin, I wanted to let it put on some growth before grafting. I decided to try my favorite grafting method, “dormant on green”. This is a method I have always used on kiwis and grapes, as green shoots don’t bleed and heal really fast. The other advantage is that the green shoots are juicy and rapidly growing, with a broad somewhat undefined cambium layer, so alignment is not really much of an issue. Since I have never read of anyone trying dormant on green grafting with jujubes, I wanted to share my results, which I thought were more than a bit impressive.
Here is the tree on the day of grafting. I made a cut (red line) through the green primary shoot that had grown out about 6 inches, removed the flowering shoots around the base of the primary shoot, and made a whip and tongue graft. The thin scion was from Honey Jar with two nodes.
After just 6 days, I started to see bud break!
After 13 days, a couple of vigorous shoots had started to really take off.
And after only 21 days, I not only had lots of new growth, but also flower buds!
A couple of small fruits actually set after a month, but dropped off. The growth has now stopped along with flowering, not only on the graft, but also on the stock. I guess it’s putting it’s energy into root growth now. I also have now grafted R4T3 onto a lignified lateral shoot, and it is finally pushing out some growth, but only after a month. I know this is not a fair comparison for several reasons, but it appears to me that dormant on green grafting works really well with jujubes.
Hal
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I have no other jujube tree for pollination. I bought the one I did because it said it was self fertile. This year I did graft on sugar cane and Li. I don’t have room to plant a tree with fruit I’ve never to tasted. Thanks
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That is a lot more fruit than I have. It’s been sunny so I’ll blame it on no pollinator.
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Seems slower to bear than usual for Shanxi, but not unheard of, depending upon your location
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Yes, that looks like Autumn Beauty.
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Update on Baby Red. The color fades as the fruit matures. Now I know why it’s called Baby Red. It’s only red when it’s a baby.
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Can I ask you how far apart are your trees.
Dave
10 year old trees in Dallas. 22-25 ft tall. From left to right, Shihong, Li, Autumn Beauty. Limbs about to break from all the fruit.
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Bob
You probably got the largest jujube trees of all the members on Growing fruit. My 9 years old multi grafted jujube tree is half the size of yours.
Tony
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I would not let mine grow beyond 10-12 ft.
@BobVance Here is my 3rd year Honey Jar, planted in 2017. It sets earlier than and a lot more than others. Continue to bloom with various sizes of fruit.
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Massandra was my first juju to ripen. I thought it really good. There was about a dozen fruit on a 15” tree. There are 3-4 fruits left. No pictures of the eaten fruit…they didn’t last long enough!
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