Hi
Is it ok to do knee height cut jujube tree? (they are bare root wipe, Li and Lang) just realized I may have cut too low, only about 24 inches above graft union.
Thanks
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I don’t do a lot of pruning on mine…just let them grow. It won’t hurt it though. Some that I have bought are no bigger than that. It will put out upright growth from different areas. Some of the cultivars automatically grow in a canopy shape and some are just all over everywhere but I think that is part of their uniqueness.
My Lang without pruning…
My sprawling Chico
Katy
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They should be fine
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Both of them are fine. We will see how they branch out. Can you provide some tips to shape them better? Thanks
Do you have an idea what you want it to look like? You can shape it how you want it but if it were me I would just let it grow a bit. I really think one of the beauties of jujube is you do not have to prune them. There are methods of pruning for increased fruit production in different climates and @jujubemulberry explains that best. To me that little fellow just needs to be allowed to grow and then you can shape when you have something to work with…maybe next year. Just my opinion and that may be skewed by my locale. Maybe others should chime in. @BobVance @tonyOmahaz5
Katy
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I second that. I just let it grow.
Tony
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Agreed, at least when they are young. They grow slow enough for me that I’m trying to not set them back. But, once they get big enough, it would probably be a good idea to thin out the growth enough to ensure good light gets to all the branches. From what I’ve seen, the branches which don’t get full sun are perfectly healthy, but produce little to no fruit. So, I could foresee a situation where the tree self-shaded enough so that none of the tree got enough sun (at least in my climate) to fruit. I wonder if that is what happened to some of @scottfsmith’s trees. I remember him saying he got some fruit from them when they were young, then nothing for a while when they were older.
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i agree, it needs to grow more, even though you seem to prefer your trees to short. Unfortunately most bare-roots have their laterals removed to facilitate fitting into the boxes for shipping. So what your trees are doing is developing several upright growth-- which will bear the fruiting laterals. Practically all fruits are borne on laterals. The laterals get thicker and longer(hence more productive) as the upright growth continues to shoot up. You will then have the option to get rid of apical buds to further thicken the relatively long laterals. The thicker the lateral, the thicker and more node-y the fruiting spurs get, so more productive .
The only thing that will result in sub-par production is if your trees don’t get enough sunlight or growing under shadows of taller trees and structures. Repetitive pruning of apical buds will only yield more fruits(relative to size of tree) if the tree is situated in wide-open fields where trees get plenty sun, despite trees being kept short. Trees grown in shady conditions need to grow taller first(to reach sunlight/avoid shadows ), before this pruning method starts working.
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My old planting trees now are just narrow spindles, there is only one scaffold. I did this to try to get more light in. Still no fruit, there is not enough sun there I don’t think. I get tons of flowers, but they don’t set.
So I agree you need to have them very well-thinned to get fruit in our kind of climate, but for less than 6 hours of sun it looks like no pruning approach will help.
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How many hours of sun are they getting Scott? Will they fruit with 6 hours?
Ouch…was my reaction when I saw this. I’m noticing these things grow so slow here that I’m not sure I’ll have to do much pruning for the next couple of years.
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Mine get about 6 hours a day, morning sun only. I would make sure you have 8+ hours wherever you plant them.
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