you’re welcome! But as with all my other posts in this forum, would be safe to just take them into consideration, but never as gospel truth…
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Lucky you. I had only 1 sucker from 2 trees in 4 yrs. I check regularly for them. That’s 1 way how to get more trees.
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I had one that took off like that this spring. What makes it stranger is that the rootstock has quite an iffy history. I got it in 2018 from Englands and the tree above the stock was dead (Jin). Then, I grafted over it last year (Norris) and the graft limped along, and the rootstock sent up stronger growth.
This spring, I put 3 Bok Jo grafts on it (double-cleft on the original leader) and 2 clefts on the suckers. Two of the grafts have a bit of fruit and both of the suckers have shot up. So, now I have 3 leaders (2, 2, and 3 feet tall.
I’ll probably use the two shorter ones for scionwood next year, as I want to start using Bok Jo in a lot more places due to its productiveness. Including these, I made 7 Bok Jo grafts this spring and all took, with 3-4 of them now having fruit.
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Hey everyone!! Hope you’re all doing well!
Looking for some advise or suggestions on what to do to have my 3 jujubes grow more, have more branches and most importantly finally have some fruit to eat. I will upload 2 pic each of the trees and if you have the time and patience can give me some options on pruning, grafting and maybe make 1 or 2 more trees out of them.
Thank you, Roni.
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This first one is the Sherwood jujube and is the slowest growing one. Looks still the same after 3 years, except that new branch in the bottom right above the graft.
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I’m not the expert here so others will chime in.
I’m assuming the location gets full sun? It just doesn’t look like a three year old tree. And what growth it has is very lanky like it isn’t getting sun. The growth at the bottom looks different from fast new growth on my jujubes in that the branch looks bright green where new growth on mine is a dark red or reddish brown. That is the only upright growth I see … after three years??? I don’t see the graft line. The new growth has very large thorns and Sherwood doesn’t really have thorns so this may be rootstock growth?? Do you fertilize at all? What kind of soil?
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Roni,
I amnot piling on. In another thread, you mentioned you bought your trees from TyTy nursery. Although you seem to be happy with the nursery, the chance of you getting trees that are true to their labels is iffy.
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This second one is the sugar cane, the only one that gave me 1 fruit a year ago and dropped all the fruits this year (fruit became yellowish wrinkly) after i probably did something wrong, too much water or sevin spraying.
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That’s true I bought these trees from tytyga. Paid a lot too lol. That’s what happens when you’re a rookie and I assure you that I am not happy with the results and the nursery.
I live in SWFL so sun is not an issue. I have fertilized twice only and just bought some 10-10-10 fertilizer that’s about to happen tomorrow. Soil is sandy and trees have been in the ground for 3 years, i bought them same size they are now. Obviously I’m doing everything wrong but at least I haven’t killed them. They all have grafting in the bottom, it’s about 2-3 inches off the ground. I’m just looking for some ideas to promote growth and fruit bearing. Back home jujubes sell for .50 cent a kg because they grow like crazy and here I can’t get a single fruit lol.
Thank you again for your help.
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I would feed them. Also another forum member in Florida had trouble getting his to set fruit. He threw down some azomite for some minerals with some good results.
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I checked now hardiness zones in Florida and maybe there is a problem with dormancy of the plants. Don’t know much about jujubes and cool periods. Probably they need some minimum of cold hours/days in dormancy for fruit set like other fruits.
Mine shanxi li finally pushed new growth, and pushed a lot 
also have flowers but not as much as tigertooths. But that is expected cause I transplanted shanxi li twice.
Here are photos of tigertooths.
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Your Sherwood doesn’t look like Sherwood. As others have noted, you are lucky they are even jujube trees. The odds that they are correctly named are not good. But if it is Sherwood, you should be aware that Sherwood can be very very slow to come into bearing.
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Lilke your jujubes looks so healthy!! I only wish…
Any suggestions where I can buy healthy and mature jujubes? Possibly from a nursery that has a good reputation.
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ok, i admit i sound like a smart alec posting this, but you can always graft them over with budwood from reputable sources @RoniSWFL
if fruits on scionwood differ from those of your trees, then you can see it half-full instead of half-empty since automatically means you have several cultivars as a result, and not just the ga 866, sugarcane and sherwood scionwood.
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Turns out that cutting the trees down was the easy part. Removing the stumps was a pain in the…everything. It took quite a while and I ran out of daylight to actually plant.
I tried using a reciprocating saw, but evidently cutting roots is a good way to dull the blade (even one made for pruning) and use up the battery (3-4 times…).
They arrived today, 6 days after I ordered. That isn’t too bad, but according to the tracking, the packaged them up on Friday and they didn’t get to Fedex until Monday night. So, they spent quite a while in a box, in Texas (hopefully not in direct sun).
and yes, I should do something about the grass growing in my driveway…
The Contorted tree is pretty nice, maybe 5/8"+, while the Lang is much smaller (maybe 3/8" or a bit more- I’ll check tomorrow). I should have called before ordering to see if they would tell me what sizes the trees were, as the variety doesn’t matter that much, given my plan to graft over them. The Contorted even had 4-5 fruit on it. A couple were just approaching being ripe (1.5 months before they would be here…) and were pretty good- crisp, with ~20 brix. I’m guessing it is the same contorted as the one I have from JFaE. I removed the other fruit, as I’m more interested in the tree getting some good growth, than putting everything in 2-3 fruit.
They weren’t cheap at $69.50 each + $40 shipping, but I should at least get them well established for grafting next spring. And I’ll leave a few lower branches of the original variety, as it’s always good to have a bit more pollination.
My Tigertooth looks to be setting fruit for the first time. It was planted in October 2015, from JFaE.
While that might satisfy the curiosity as to whether the varieties are accurate, I’d suggest grafting some more productive ones on. Particularly Honey Jar and maybe So/Contorted.
It wouldn’t hurt to graft a Sugar Cane to one of the others (pollination and you can still compare the fruit from neighboring trees), as they are relatively productive and have a light, crisp texture (at least mine have).
You could check to see how many flowers they have- if the GA866 has as many or more than the others, it is probably mis-labeled. Mine has been very stingy with flower production and AFAIK has never made even a small fruitlet.
To get some more jujube trees (never a bad idea…) you can check out my thread comparing jujube vendors:
Chinese Red Date is sold out for spring 2021, so I’d suggest Grow Organic or Trees of Antiquity for nice big trees. Just Fruits and Exotics is in Florida, so they are also a good option for you, though they offer slightly smaller (but potted) trees. But if you never really have a dormant season in South Florida, then maybe a potted tree would be good.
The JFaE site says they will have jujube back in stock in October. If you want a potted one now, you should still be able to get it in a 5 gal pot from Bob Wells. But, I think they only have Lang and Contorted in stock.
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totally agree since they seem to be productive even at borderline zones. Sherwood and ga 866 are two of the relatively stingy ones, even here in vegas.