Yep…. Time will tell……
Yes, the wood from the SoCal grower is the alleged new Porterville. It’s interesting that both trees do look very similar. That gives me hope.
I do not know the difference between Kitaiski 2A and Kitaiski 2. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the same, and people started dropping the ‘A’.
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I have a bit of a conundrum.
What you are looking at in this first photo are 2 root sprouts in one pot. At one time there were 4 sprouts, but I cut back 2 of them. There was originally a grafted Autumn Beauty in this pot, but it died all the way down to the ground in Winter 2020/2021 when temperatures hit -14.
It’s very difficult to see the difference in this photo but basically there is a taller sprout to the left and a shorter sprout growing under it to the right. Both are very healthy.
Here is the taller sprout which has maybe 4 or 5 small flowers total. It has relatively small leaves. It has a few small thorns.
Below is the smaller sprout which has many flowers and some small fruits. It has larger leaves. It has very few if any thorns. There seems to be no doubt that these two sprouts are genetically distinct.
So, what is going on here? Why is this rootstock producing two distinctly different sprouts?
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I had kind of the same situation after my Massandra died. Two distinct plants emerged. One was a sucker off the rootstock and one ended up being a sucker off the Massandra graft….basically at ground level. I cut the rootstock and now the Massandra has fruit and is six foot tall. But if was something off the Autumn Beauty that possibly remained I would think it would have spike thorns……
The AB was grafted about 10 inches above the ground. It died completely and the rootstock above ground died also. Nothing living remained above ground.
Now I wonder what those other two sprouts I cut back were like.
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A bit of a long shot, but maybe a pit fell in the pot and a seedling grew? To really know, you may need to do an autopsy on the roots. Maybe wait for next winter and bare root them?
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That’s the only reasonable thing I could think of.
In theory it might be a sport, but I’ve never heard of a jujube sport developing from roots.
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I’ve been noticing an interesting trend. This year, a few jujubes are setting before others. It seems a bit less even than in the past. And there are a number of trees that are overflowing with flowers, but little to no set yet, including Honey Jar and Sugar Cane.
Here’s a Sugar Cane I saw at a rental today:
This Sugar Cane was probably my 2nd heaviest producing tree last year…that may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but I have a lot of trees, so their competition is intense. 
It is also a comparatively young tree- 2017 vs my oldest So (2011), which has been taking the top spot for a while.
A pic from a bit more distance:
Now, the trend I’m noticing is that all the varieties with significant sets have large fruit size:
Li (in above pic, not several other Li)
Dae Sol Jo (graft in above pic and graft at my house on GA866)
Tae Sang Wang
Shanxi Li (1 of 3 trees)
Sihong (two grafts, not the 2 trees the grafts came from…)
Li (from above):
Dae Sol Jo (from above):
The bucket in the above pic wasn’t gardening related- it’s the tools I brought with me to fix a dryer
So, not everything which has large fruit is setting, but only things with big fruit have any real set (other than a single Honey Jar fruitlet and the start of a Bok Jo I saw today). I’m sure there are a bunch I’ve missed, as there are a ton of flowers and the fruit are quite small still. But, it still seems strange that the varieties with larger fruitsize would set first. Maybe they need more time to grow, but I don’t remember that trend in past years.
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Beautiful photos
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Jujubes… per One Green World… no known pest or disease issues.
Oh well something took a few bites of one of my Shanxi li. Seems to be the only damage in around 40 fruit found so far.
It has pretty good fruit set perhaps for a 3 yr old ?
My GA866… I have found 9 or so fruit set on it so far… both are still blooming. It is a 3 yr old too.
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Funny enough I have grasshoppers that will eat on some of the fruit but they will pick a tree and eat on several of those fruit but won’t touch fruits on another tree right beside it. This even happens on my potted trees that are in close proximity to each other. Maybe they are just picky……
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Thinking about planting a Honey Jar near my Shanxi li and Ga866.
I got those two from OGW.
They were basically 3 ft whips when I planted them but they grew well.
Is there a nursery where I am more likely to get a larger HJ jujube tree ?
Getting fruit in year 1 or 2 would be nice.
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Looking forward to seeing if any of your GA866 fruit will mature properly. They might this year because of the continuous heat we’ve been having.
Honey Jar is produced by the huge California wholesale nursery Dave Wilson. Their trees are always good sized and most retailers sell them for reasonable prices. You can find a list of retailers on the Dave Wilson website-
https://www.wheretobuy.davewilson.com/home-gardens/where-to-buy-dwn-trees
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They do smell good!!!
Thanks @castanea …
Ps… my Shanxi li fruit many have sized up some already… The Ga866 fruit I am finding is still quite small. Hopefully they size up and ripen. I still have 4 months or so of growing season.
If the Ga866 does not work out… a HJ and Shanxi li may be all I need. The Shanxi li is looking promising.
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This one is from Dave Wilson nursery. Was maybe 5 ft and 3/4"
It took 6 or 7 years for my Shanxi Li to produce good fruit. It produced fruit earlier but it just wasn’t great. Young jujube trees often don’t put all their energy into fruit production and the flavors and the sweetness don’t always develop properly.
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@BenG — thanks … I have purchased a few fruit trees from DWN and I do recall they were nice sized trees… Lapins Cherry and 2 EU Plums. I will see if I can get a HJ from there next spring.
@castanea — 6 or 7 years… oh man… I may not be around that long… never know.
If I am hopefully I get to taste some top notch jujubes.
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