Looks like you got a mixed bag. Some thick ones going down to thin. If you just buy one jujube it is $90. That’s pretty steep. GA866 looks great, but nobody has anything good to say about it. Everyone says it takes forever to fruit.
Is honey jar a quick grower? How long to get from 3 to 6 feet? Deer destroy everything up to that point. So need rapid growth.
it is an excellent cultivar, but production is iffy, even here in vegas. It will produce fruits as a 2 yr old graft, or a 3 ft tall specimen(from jfae). Fruits are on the large size, but few and far in between, per unit length of stem.
I had GA866 fruit from a local farmers market. I do not have a lot of experience with jujube but the flavor was pretty good in my opinion. However, this is California, everything starts fruiting fast here.
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Of the 10, I think 8 were around 1/2" caliper. The Lang was small (1/4") and died the next winter (I think that was the only one which died). The Winter Delight was 3/4" and has a decent number of fruit (15+) in year #2. If I get more trees from them I’ll probably call first to check on sizes.
Yup. I have one and there has been no fruit in 5 years, on a fairly large tree. In fact, it hasn’t even flowered that much. I’ve started grafting things to it. One graft had fruit the same year as it was grafted, so it doesn’t look like the trees fault 
Depends on your soil and how much you fertilize and water. I just mentioned in another thread that a jujube that I planted at another property grew to 11-12’ in 1.5 years. That was the Li. I think the Honey Jar next to it is 10-11’, so maybe slightly less vigorous. But still a stronger grower than So, which is 7-8’.
But, at my house it could take 3-4 years to get that same growth. At least when starting with a big, high quality tree. If I start with a small 1 gal pot from OGW or BR they take forever. I have some 5+ years old that have just reached 5’.
I like JFaE, especially to get trees on their own roots. But, if you are focused on large, I think you’ll get just as big a tree, if not bigger bare root from Grow Organic, Bay Laurel, or Trees of Antiquity. Listed in my order of preference, even though all 3 are good.
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I like to stick to pots as much as possible. This year I bought two bare root pears from Burnt Ridge and several 2 foot potted pears from Dax. Both BR pears only leaves and one from Dax over 6 foot and others in between. Huge difference.
Think I am going to try England’s. Never bought from them, but they have 4-5 foot potted jujubes. And cheaper. Do you have any experience with them?
I have bought other items from this guy. They are 4x4x10 and larger sized pots. Not bad selection.
Cliff is a good guy and has a massive selection of varieties. He had a bad spring this year with 2 frosts after the jujube leafed out. I think he lost 137 of ~200 mature jujube trees. I’m not sure what it did to his stock, so you should email him and check to see what he has available. He sells a number of different grades. The small and medium are probably closer in size to the small ones I mentioned earlier. I think “Extra large” is the one you should go for, which could be 1/2" caliper or a bit more. He does use taller boxes though, so I think the tree could be a foot or two taller than JFaE.
But I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a potted one from him. They may be container grown, then have the potting media shaken off, so they can be sent bare-rooted. If this is a key feature for you, I’d suggest asking about it as well.
Yes, I saw some 7 gal jujube which is tempting, though $150 is a bit pricey. But, then I noticed that in the shipping area it says “we cannot ship potted fruit trees as they are too large.”. They have a shipping example for 1 gal, so I think they would send them, but I’m not sure how large they’ll go. I think you’d want at least 2-3 gal.
Bob Wells also sells them in pots. I got a couple decent ones from them a few weeks ago:
Yeah, I think he will only send up to the three gallon pots. He had a 7 gal. early golden persimmon for $20. I tried everything to get him to send it.
The Winter Delight from JFaE I planted last June is up to 6’ now. I took some pics today:
The Honey Jar from the same time is a bit shorter- just under 5’ and has about 10 fruit on it as well. I didn’t check the Sugar Cane today, but from what I recall, it is about the same size as the HJ, but only had 1-2 fruit.
Thanks for all the pics. Looking at yours I can see it will be many years before they can stand up to a deer. I have a Li near the house and it looks like they will all need to be near the house. Might be nothing to the average person, but I get about $100 in damage from deer every year. To me the info you are giving me is saving me big money. Thanks.
The Li I bought locally a while back in 7 gal pot. They had Lang to, but you never hear anyone excited about their Lang harvest. If you did not have trees would you buy some Langs to eat?
Yes, at a absolute minimum, I think you’d need to protect it for 2 years. And that is if you give it full sun, good soil, plenty of fertilizer and enough water. In poorer conditions, it could be within deer range indefinitely.
Even having trees, I’d do it at least once. I have a Lang (even after the JFaE one died), but I just planted it last year, so I’ve never eaten them. I’d want see how they are. And when I see fruit for sale the the cultivar name, it makes me more likely to buy it, just to add a datapoint
Besides, I don’t get enough jujube from my trees yet. Also, my season doesn’t start until mid September, so my wife has been buying (iffy quality) jujus from Chinatown for a few weeks now.
Next time you see a good sized one, you could buy it and graft a different (likely better) variety on top.
I already have a few seedlings that I am experimenting with. If the fruit sucks I will be trying to graft them. The deer not only eat them, but when in the rut they plow them into the ground with their horns often snapping the tree in half. That’s how they get the felt off their horn. Needless to say two or three snapped in half adds up quickly. Even with fence cages they still find ways to get at them.
They were bigger than 3 gal, but I think they were a bit less than 5. I’ll check to see if I still have the pot nearby and and give you a more precise value. The Contorted was good size and had fruit on it, while the Lang was a bit thinner than I would have liked. When I ordered, I think they were the only 2 varieties that were in stock.
They are out of all jujubes. They have some 4-5 foot pears and 3-4 foot persimmons I’m interested in. Was it packaged to take a beating along the way.
Yes, they were well packed. There is a pic of it in the box in this post:
@BobVance Bob well just put a lot of things on sale half off. No advertisement. You have to dig through and find them. I’m scooping up several pears. They have an ayers for $11 and others for $20. Sweet deals.
Thanks for letting me know. I’m not adding many trees right now, so I don’t see anything I really need (just one last try at an apricot, as a good spot opened up for it and of course jujube).
According to their website, they still have Lang and Contorted, though they aren’t cheap at $69.50.
Already know about lang. What is contorted hitting on? They have a goldkist apricot for $20.
I was looking at the Gold Kist, but they say “Excellent backyard apricot for warm winter climates.” and it is zone 7-10. Hardy apricots die pretty quick for me, so I’m not going to try to stretch things. I’ll add either one the Har series or another Tomcot (I’ve lost several, but the fruit was very good…).
I’m not sure what you mean by hitting on? Contorted (also known as So) has a zig-zag branch structure. It makes good fruit and has been productive for me. The Contorted I got from BW actually had fruit already on it in the box. But, Contorted isn’t supposed to get quite as big as the other jujube varieties. But, even with pruning, my oldest So is at least 12’ tall (I’m going to cut it back this winter).
Gold Kist is a very early bloomer, which would be a problem in any location with spring freezes. Also, the fruit quality is subpar, just ok for jam, useless for fresh eating.
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