I have 3 jujube trees grafted on an unknown rootstocks. After 4 years, Sucar Cane has a could of suckers. The two big ones are next to the trunk of the main tree. Fruit was awful. I probably will remove them.
Shanxi Li has no sucker.
Honey Jar took until this year to sucker like mad. The ones outside the raised bed will be dug up to use as new rootstocks.
My wuestion is can I dig them up now or I should wait until next spring?
@jujubemulberry, @k8tpayaso, @tonyOmahaz5, @BobVance and et al?
I have dug them before dormancy but usually they will need special care to survive. If they have lots of roots it will be easier. I usually pot them in a small pot and put them in a shallow pan with water in it and set it in the shade. I know that sounds extreme to most of you guys and just remember that I am in hot Texas but the water soak has not hurt them and I think it helps them survive. If doing okay in about two weeks I quit putting water in the pan and leave them in the shade for a while. Most of them usually do well but some donāt make it. Just depends on how many roots you get when you dig them.
Btw I have never had any of my inground trees sucker that muchā¦
Kathy,
I may dig up some up to try to repot them. Leaving them until next spring is risky as I have quite a few bunnies. They have munched some seedlings already.
If I leave them until the fall before digging, I am not sure if they would be established enough before our cold winter arrives.
If I leave them until dormancy here they will get 3 foot tall. Maybe not if there were that many but I dug four from my Li last winter that ranged between 18ā to 3 feet. So it just depends. I just repotted some seedlings and got these out of the pots next to them. One has already been repotted and relocated and two didnāt survive.
Thats a lot of rootstock suckers @mamuang, Rollingriver sells those at 15$ each.
Those seem to be growing on shallow, porous compost so should be relatively easy to dig up with little root damage.
In the past, Iāve transplanted and grafted them in one step in the spring, with mixed results. Iāve also grafted them the next spring and left the graft grow for a year before transplanting. I think the graft had a better take rate when I left them in place. Thatās what I did for the R1T4 and R4T3 (pictured in post 1668 in this thread),then transplanting them into a pot a full year after grafting.
Just a few weeks ago, I yanked out a few suckers and they had just a bit of root on them. So I potted them up, kept them watered and put them in a spot with only a bit of morning sun. To my surprise, they both appear to have made it.
I do have some new ones that I could pull/dig. This one even has a flower, even though it is only a month or two old.
Most trees have 0 or 1 suckers. But this Li has quite a few, one almost 3ā tall. Iām guessing it means that the tree itself isnāt very happyā¦It definitely isnāt that productive, as it has never ripened a fruit, in the 5 years Iāve had it.
But, now that Kathy mentions that success in transplanting an actively growing sucker is reasonably possible (not a fluke, as I thought my recent experience wasā¦), I may do more of that. I think it would tend to shave down how long it takes to get a new tree, rather than waiting until next spring, then grafting and letting it grow for another year attached, before separating it. It also reduces the time that the sucker is a drag on the parent tree. I am somewhat hesitant about digging around trees that have fruit on them. Iād hate to injure it and contribute to the fruit-drop which already hits around this time of year.
I have accidentally taken a big chunk of the mother plant roots when taking a suckerā¦ so far I havenāt lost a tree but I have set one back a year or two.
I put them in what I call āintensive careā until Iām sure they have established themselves. Most do even with few roots but those will take longer to actually get going. I like to see a bit of growth starting before I put them in a tough situation.
Speaking of digging up jujus relatively late in the year, will definitely wont do it on this one anytime soon. Not even sure if it actually rooted, and if any, likely too wispy to survive any disturbance. It is a segment of chico upright i treated with iba. Still alive after > 2 months on its own, and producing new growth, seen here as apple green, tiny foliageā¦ hoping, if not yearning ā to grow this on own roots so badly!
Thank you you guys for sharing your experience and pics. Patience is not my virtue. After seeing bunnies munched so many, I figured I might as well dig them up today as it is cloudy and drizzling.
Dug up and potted 13 of them. Gentle is not my middle nane, either. Some of these suckers have only a few roots like Bob said. Hope they will survive like Bobās.
Any of those suckers that had two trunks next to each other, I trimmed them down to one. Easier to handle that way as they grow (if they survive)
Iād leave all the trunks, if the roots canāt be separated. If you look closely at the 2nd pic in my post, you can see that one of the 3 trunks didnāt make it. Iād hate to guess wrong and remove the good one 
Also, next spring you can graft all them and see which grafts take. With transplanted suckers, the success rate is much lower than with established trees, at least for me . So it is good to have more than one chance to succeed. You can always trim one off if you get lucky and 2 live.
Or, you could grow the jujube into a multi-variety bush, something I have thought about doing, since my large So is so bush-like. It doesnāt seem like something people are doing much, but it goes well with the āour adventureā theme!
Bob,
Your point is well taken but it is too late 
. Next round of suckers, I will leave multiple trunks.
Jujubes have been more attractive fruit for me to grow. So easy and delish (to me).
Anyone know any good tasting early ripening cultivar? All my HJ, SC, Shanxi Li and Massandra seem to ripen about the same time.
Here is a bifurcated rootstock that I grafted V. Candy to the left and V. Spicy to the right. Because of the low graft this will most likely turn into a bush like set of trees.
I was inspired and pulled up some suckers today as well. I started with the Li and got 8, though some didnāt have much roots.
Then I got 3 more from Sherwood, though one did cost the tree a mid-sized root. At least I was able to split the root so that each leader had some.
Here are some that would have caused too much damage, so I just pruned them off.
Trunk sucker (pruned off):
Big root sucker (also pruned off). You can see a smaller root to the right that I cut, then pulled out with the suckers.
I didnāt have enough mix, so I took the 4-5 gal I had then added a bunch of perlite, composted leaves, Turface, and a bit of slow release fertilizer. I still ended up using this entire batch up for the 11 suckers and 7 more pots (mostly 1 gal) where I planted a bunch of jujube seeds from last fall.
Cliff suggested Redland and Dae Sol Jo for early cultivars, but I am not sure how early that is. I have some DSJ on my tree this year, so Iāll get to see how early they ripen.
I think the best chance for getting an early juju in our climate is to take a relatively early variety (like HJ) and spray with GA3 as soon as flowers appear in mid June. That way, maybe we can get the fruit growing ASAP, rather than after they have been flowering for a month or more.
Nice- built in pollination as well. It looks like V Candy is growing much faster than V Spicy. V Booty is the only one from Vegas I have, but it is growing well.
Bob,
I cut out a lot of suckers like the ones in your 3rd and 4th pics. Too close to the trunks and on main/large roots, etc.
If half of my 13 suckers survive, Iāll be very happy.
Someone had posted this which suggested that borax might work as an alternative to ga3. Has anyone tried that?
http://www.actahort.org/books/840/840_47.htm
I sprayed some on my baby HJās just for the fun of it since itās cheap and I had some, although I sprayed it on all of them, so it wasnāt like I left one untreated as a control.
I will be very careful using Borax esp. not to get too much of it in ground. Soil only needs little borax. Adding it to the soil unintentionally is what I would try to avoid.
Arenāt they using 0.3% foliar spray of borax? That is a trace amount and it wonāt hurt anythingā¦still less so the soil.
Yes, I did the light foliar spray as they indicated.
I think boron is essential and did a spray for my grapes with it that helped them and anecdotally I hit my small jujube and not my larger one and my smaller one bloomed better for sure.
