I just received my jujube order from Roger Meyers and wanted to report on it. While I’ve seen lots of reports on the bigger nurseries (ACN, Dave Wilsons, etc), I haven’t seen anything which describes trees and rootstocks he sends out.
I ordered 50 rootstocks:
1.) It appears that he splits it into bags of ~10 (see the 5 bags below in the pic)
2.) From what I can see, the slips a few extra in each bag, as I got 11, 12, 12, 13, and 13.
3.) I’m not absolutely sure of the above, as I haven’t opened the bags yet to see the roots. Maybe there are just some rootstocks with Y shapes. If that is the case, it won’t bother me- they would be perfect to graft two types onto and give away as self-pollinating gifts to people who only want one tree.
4.) There is a great variety in calipers. The biggest was 7/16", while the smallest was 1/8"
The breakdown is as follows (size measured from near the top of the rootstock- some may be wider closer to the roots.
2/16"- 13, 21%
3/16"- 20, 33%
4/16"- 16, 26%
5/16"- 7, 11%
6/16"- 4, 7%
7/16"- 1, 2%
I’ve never tried to graft 1/8" caliper before, but I think it can be done. Past rootstock orders: Cummins (5/16"-8/16") and Raintree (~4/16"). Given how I was measuring near the top (the part which sticks out of the bag), the bottoms will in the 4/16"+ range for all but the smallest category. So, I’ll treat the 2/16" as a bonus, as there were 13 of them and I got ~11 extra rootstocks.
Three Trees-
Shanxi Li ($5 more than others)- 4/16" scion caliper and 12.5" of growth
Li- 4/16" caliper and 14" of growth
Honey Jar- 3/16" caliper and no apparent grown (2" scion)
I’m a bit worried about the Honey Jar, as it looks like the scion callused last year, but didn’t grow much if at all. It and the Li are for a Chinese co-worker, so I may give him an extra bench-graft or two in case it doesn’t take.
The Shanxi Li and Li are both small, but I bet they’ll put on good growth.
One thing I noticed looking at the trees is that he uses cleft grafts. That is comforting, as it is exactly what I’m planning to use and if he is doing that with all his trees, it must work out OK.
I’ll add more notes and pics as I open things up to start grafting and planting.
Note- this pic is cross-posted in the thread about how the cold part of the country is finally starting to see some warm weather (the 3 trees on the bottom are from Bay Laurel):