Jujubes- Our New Adventure

They don’t look like my Honey Jar but I think @tonyOmahaz5 has some that are different shapes.

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They do look kind of huge compared to hj that i know of. Intriguing nonetheless!

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It doesn’t really matter what variety it is to me. I’m just happy to have a relatively productive tree. However, I don’t want to pass any scions around and potentially have it be mislabeled!

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Shanxi Li from Scott’s scionwood about 6 yrs ago. He may have got it from Roger Myer’s.

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Andrew,
We both benefit from our commiseration. I enjoy it.

Re. Honey Jar. My HJ shape reminds me a bit of a trapezoid, narrower on top and wider at the bottom. They look a bit like a square jar. Mine was from Edible Landscaping.

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Time for some genetic testing :slight_smile:

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These Honey Jars look very similar to the fruit on my JF&E tree last year. I will attempt to photograph the fruit this year when I pick them on a ladder! This tree severely needs to be topped. It grew 4 feet in height this year.

I topped my jujube trees last year. If I can’t reach fruit from the top of my ladder, the trees are too tall for me. Off with their heads :laughing:

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I think the first ones I did wilted, then put out more leaves from the wilted sections. So the leaves died, but the wood was OK.

I got more potting soil, so I did more today. This clump all came up from a single spot. Maybe I should have made it into a 5 variety bush. The good thing is that it was at least 6-7 feet from the parent tree, so I didn’t mind using a shovel and digging out some root, rather than just yanking up the sucker.

Nothing a bit of surgery couldn’t resolve, though one was a bit light on roots:

I made sure to label the pots as suckers, to differentiate from the seedlings I create. I also incorporated Katy’s idea of cutting back on the foliage.

Jujubes haven’t been that fast growing, so they have been easier to keep in check. Peaches on vigorous stock can be tough and mulberries tempt me to use a chainsaw (especially since only birds get to eat them…).

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For me, it was my first digging up jujube suckers so I did not know how the suckers spread and how little roots those sucker have.

Now I know I will be more careful and hope to have a higher success rate in the future.

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For growing jujubes in Michigan Z6 what is the preferred rootstock to use? I am going to get two trees going this year if its the last thing i ever do.

Jujube seedlings are the preferred rootstock.

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Andrew,
I checked my jujbe trees. Honey Jar fruit do not have red tint even when small. Mine are solid green.

However, Sugar Cane and Shanxi Li have some red tint on fruit, particularly more on young Sugar Cane.

Here are Sugar Cane.

Here are Shanxi Li, not as much re. red tint on fruit.

Could yours be a Sugar Cane, considering it is another popular variety.

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Thank you for taking these pictures to compare. How does your Sugar Cane tree grow? My tree in question is very spreading with limbs that bend outwards like a bush. It also has no thorns unlike some of my other trees.

I air layered the rootstock sucker on July 16. It now has some fine roots on part of the surface of the container.

Pondering if I should cut it and pot up so it’s more established in early Spring next year for grafting.

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Here’s my Sugar Cane.

The three trees, HJ, SC and Shanxi Li seem to grow the same way.

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Maybe mine is indeed Sugar Cane. It is more weepy right now because the fruit is weighing down some of the branches. This is very exciting.
It’s hard to make out the exact shape of the tree, because the blackberry canes are trying to takeover the world.

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It is indeed hard to make out what is what in the pics, esp. the second pic.

I like Sugar Cane.

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As you can tell, my yard has many plants in it!

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Who says jujube need sun to fruit. :slight_smile:

This one gets very little sun and still produced a good sized fruit…one fruit on the whole tree. Though given how much shade it is in, even that surprises me.

After the neighbors removed a large tree, I put several jujube along the border. Then, they planted some tall arborvitaes, which are directly to the South of the jujubes. The combination of the nieghbor’s property being higher, to the South, and having tall evergreens makes this a bad spot for jujus.

It is leaning toward the sun and I was thinking about staking it. Instead, I think I’ll just transplant it.

This part of the yard is so shaded that it stays moist enough to grow big fungus flowers (I’m not sure what they are really called), which I removed before mowing.

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