here’s one of our seedlings with fruits at ~2 yrs of age and the first one worthy of being named-- we dubbed it Vegas Baby(and you can’t get more kardashian than that!). Fruits have the flavor and texture of HJ, but with a sour twist to make it interesting. Only caveat is that fruits are smaller than HJ’s, which should at least befit the ‘Baby’ surname
Still, it is amazingly good considering that the seed was obtained from a rootstoc pit.
in hindsight, just now thinking should have started growing seedlings sooner. Evidently didn’t have the patience to grow seedlings back then, as the bare root trees and various budwood were too ‘slow’ for us(at the time) so didn’t bother with seeds. Only when we maxed out the collection did we have the patience/ will to be optimistic about this delayed(and uncertain) gratification.
no doubt that he wouldn’t. This city has been built on vices and caprice, so not exactly a topic for someone who was battling cancer-- and waging war on tobacco…
yeah, it is a weird, weird name.
but it is-- in fact, known as ‘ant admire’ . Not sure about the etymology of this name.
Makes me think more about entomology
it is sometimes referred to as ‘ant admiral’, which somewhat makes it a little bit more meaningful, but the word ‘ant’ still throws me off…
What type of brix are you seeing? Is it mid season, like Honey Jar? It looks very precocious and productive, but that may be true of most jujubes where you are.
I’ve got 3 juju seedlings going. I started a lot more, but they had a very high infant mortality rate. I’m not sure why, but they seem to stall out when they are about 4" high and don’t have many leaves. [quote=“jujubemulberry, post:9, topic:12224”]
yeah, it is a weird, weird name.
but it is-- in fact, known as ‘ant admire’ . Not sure about the etymology of this name.
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I’ve always assumed that someone saw the tree covered in ants and figured that the ants really admired it. I see ants on mine, though I’m not sure how good they are at pollinating. I figure that they may help a bit for multi-grafts, but they may not get around to the neighboring trees enough to help people who have one variety per tree.
It seems to be early to mid. Will check the brix as soon as i find my cheapo refractometer. Our house is currently buried in clutter it is not even funny…
happens to some of our seedlings too. Even some of our wild-type seedlings aren’t as vigorous as seedlings from named cultivars, so there must be a great deal of diversity going on with open pollination.
seedlings from ant admire pits seem to be the fastest growing in vegas conditions.
and going back to wild-type rootstock, we have concluded that nurseries use random seedlings as rootstock, because suckers produce a wide variety of fruits distinctly different from other suckers, from sour to bland. The subspecies ‘spinosa’ seems to be getting elusive as we observe our trees’ suckers. Now inclined to think it may just be a heinz 57 mutt, either that or it was never even imported into usa!
So, are you speculating that the only reason to graft onto a “rootstock” would be to hasten the productivity of the tree? Any cultivar seedling that proves itself vigorous will be hardy enough to serve as rootstock and the primary reason to graft to it would be the using of older wood from the desired cultivar?
I’ve wondered about that. We have lots of ants here and a lot of them are fire ants. I would have said most of them were (from the stings I get) but the ants I see on the blooms are a smaller ant. I have jujus that are several hundred feet apart but seems as if the same small ants are on both sets. I just can’t see these ants going from tree to tree! But I do see more on one tree than another as if the blooms of some are preferred over others. Maybe we should tag them!!!
honestly, don’t even know now what the ‘real’ wild-type rootstoc is… There are too many permutations with interstems alone, and now more permutations when taking into account the variability of rootstoc. As for the ‘only reason to graft’, vigorous rootstoc may hasten the productivity of the budwood, and likely extend its longevity than, say–growing cultivars on their own roots as airlayers…
from what have noticed with our trees obtained from several nurseries across several states, it seems to be just that. Cold-hardiness is probably the most variable, as some of our seedlings succumbed over the winter, or died back and only grew back from suckers. I would rather use those which survived a winter or two without dying back, especially if growing them in colder regions.
we are still in that early stage where the more we learn about jujus, the more questions and possibilities arise…
If Li Jujube never has seeds how has it survived? Only by human cultivation? Does it ever occur on its own roots? I would guess not. So if it does not seed then there will not be Li hybrids? Is there incidences in which it does seed? I cracked all my Chico seeds and they were all empty.
by propagation via grafting, or airlayering. In Israel, they use tissue culture techniques to mass-produce li’s and other jujus, which means they grow on their own roots just like airlayers.
i have cracked hundreds of li pits but have yet to find a viable seed over a course of five years. Either the pit was empty, or the seeds were deformed and paper-thin. Same with chico.
there could still be li hybrids, since li may still be a pollen source. In fact, the most popular source of pollen because of availability and because it is self-fertile. Apparently it is only self-fertile in producing fruits, but totally inept as seed producer from its own ovules, even with other sources of pollen. It must be the ovules that were predestined to be duds.
speaking of Murphy and seedless duds, well, li and chico seem to be ‘mules’. Mules have desirable characteristics, just like li and chico, but for some reason, could not produce babies of their own(via ovules). Only other way of possibly getting their DNA broadcast is via pollen.
whereas the only reproducible way of creating mules is to breed donkeys with horses, the only way of preserving the desirable phenotypes of chicos and li’s is via grafting/airlayering/tissue-culture.
For what it’s worth FW Schumacher sells lbs or 1/4 lbs of dehulled Ziziphus spinosa seeds. 1 lb has over 11,000 seeds and it’s only around $80. I got really tired of cracking seeds so this seemed like a pretty good option.
I would guess not. So if it does not seed then there will not be Li hybrids? Is there incidences in which it does seed? I cracked all my Chico seeds and they were all empty.