I have a lot of experience now rooting fig & pomegranate cuttings. They’re fairly easy… especially poms, but what else would you recommend? Does anyone have success rooting Jujube scion or Goji Berry scions?
This is the method I recommend… it works wonders:
Any variety that tends to generate root primordia on its above ground bark should do it. I know N. Spy is one of them but there are many others- I think Gala is one, also but I will keep my eyes out and try to give you some other ones- I’m sure I manage about ten other varieties that have this trait. It’s not something I’ve seen mentioned in literature.
I’ve successfully rooted gooseberry cuttings, grapes, currants, peach, hardy kiwi, and asian plum. I tried with persimmons and apple, but it didn’t work.
goji’s are so much easier to propagate by cuttings. If you see them being sold at big box stores, they are just like figs and poms-- presented as sticks stuck into the soil. Jujubes are much more difficult even though possible. So most nurseries sell them grafted. We have airlayered jujus and also tried them as cuttings in spring using vitamin b complex / naa/iba, but little luck, and with the few we were lucky with, the growth was runty, if not touch and go, so temporarily abandoning the endeavor. They are still alive, but having waited for months for them to respond to miracle-gro and babying, definitely not worth the time and trouble and expense of using rooting hormones, since their grafted contemporaries are already fruiting and have grown three to five feet tall. Only advantage of course is if the runts finally decide to be productive and grow up(and not just grow old), is that the suckers will be as desirable as the mother plant, and not as thorny as the wild rootstoc. There are labs in the middle east which successfully grow them from greentips, but it involves more than just the rooting hormones and vitamins from home depot. And not sure if the clones have any vigor
incidentally, have to tag @forestandfarm as his juju propagation venture is more promising where he’s at, and he’s been doing it for much longer with the tigertooth variety.
our runty cuttings are hj and li, btw,and we’re growing ours in bone-dry vegas…
I have yet to have any success rooting jujube cuttings. Fortunately the tigertooth I bought from Just fruits and exotics were grown on their own roots. Root cuttings work reasonably well. I just planted several small jujubes that I started from root cuttings. I’ll try to take some pictures tomorrow. A some of them produced a few fruits while growing in the containers this summer.
oops, sorry about that, for a while i thought you’ve been doing stem cuttings. But then again-- that you’re actually growing root cuttings from a specimen more desirable than spinosa’s-- and getting them to produce fruit sure is good news!
Thanks for the info about jujube’s. Looks like I need to find some rootstock. If planted in ground, do all jujubes sucker?
not many folks have planted domesticated jujus from cuttings, or from random seeds(those other than wild-type jujus), so hard to tell. And if any, the specimens are probably still young. Although evidently, per forestandfarm’s experience, tigertooth is a reliable option.
Our li’s and hj’s(cuttings) have pushed little growth and seriously doubt they’d be suckering anytime soon considering their laggard existence.
I have found few varieties sold on their own roots. Tigertooth is the only one I have so far. My older tigertooth trees in the field do sucker a little, but they don’t seem to sucker as much as wild (sour) jujube rootstock which tends to thicket if you don’t keep the area mowed. With wild (sour) rootstock, you will not typically get quality fruit.
Last winter I dug up a few sprouts from my Tigertooth and planted them in rootmaker containers. Most but not all survived. A number of them flourished. I will probably give those that did not thrive one more growing season in containers before transplanting them to the field.
Since I have not seen any other varieties grown on their own roots. I can’t say for sure if they tend to form more or fewer root sprouts.
I’ve tried lime cuttings, and had no success whatsoever. Tried most methods but couldn’t get any success.
From what Just Fruits and Exotics told me, they propagate jujubes by rooting, not just Tigertooth. They did say that they don’t get a great take rate though (softwood cuttings in summer put under mist). Here is a 5 year old So, with a ~3ft tall sucker in the front left. It doesn’t produce too many though- just 4 so far and they have all been in the last 1.5 years (none at all in years 1-3). The one time you want suckers and they don’t make that many.
I’m adding a Honey Jar and a Sugar Cane from them next spring.
Note that I’m 3/4 through with picking, so what you see on the tree is just the stragglers.
I should add that when I harvested some persimmon suckers this spring, the response from the plant was to send up a bunch more suckers from the same spot. Some are pretty large, in the 5+’ range. Hopefully the So does the same thing next year.
You can tell the sucker from the main tree, as the sucker is Virginia, with dull leaves, while the tree is Tam Kam, a Kaki, with shiny leaves.
Jack,
Those trees from root cuttings looked great. Did the fruits from those root cuttings looked the same as the JF&E photo of the Tigertooth on their webpage? If the fruits look a like then the root cuttings are true from the Mother tree.
Tony
Tony,
Yes, it is funny that my only fruiting trees are the ones growing in containers (must not like my soils) but the fruit from root cuttings is exactly the same as the tigertooth fruit on their webpage.
Jack,
That was a great new. So my 4 Tigertooths were true to the mother tree.
Tony
Hmm… what else has a good shot at rooting?! Lots of good info here.
Of what I’ve tried:
Easy: Currant (including red, black, and white), gooseberry, elderberry (a bit tougher than the first two…)
Harder, but some success: Grapes (though not dormant muscadines), figs, hardy kiwi
Jostaberry are easy and with a fog box,I’ve done Blueberry,Honeyberry,Blackberry,Autumn Olive and Chilean Guava. Brady
SMC,
What’d you do to successfully root peach? Also, what percentage were successful?
I scarred the side of a hardwood cutting, dipped it in rooting hormone, and placed it in a loose potting soil mix within a humidity dome – a two liter bottle with the bottom cut off. I got one out of six to root. Variety was Gold Dust. I think air-layering peaches is a lot easier than rooting cuttings, though.
