I’ve seen a lot of little flying things on mine too. I think a lot are small wasps and such. But I’ve also seen ants, so it makes sense to me to make them into multi-grafts. Most of my trees have at least 2 varieties. And even new grafts usually have a few flowers on them (that very rarely turn into fruit). I don’t think it is required, but it probably helps.
Even more helpful is age. My oldest one (So) produced none or almost none for the first 3 years (maybe 2 fruits in year 3?). This year (#7) looks to be the best yet. Possibly due to the long, hot, sunny steak we had, until the last week. From June 29th, we had 12 of 19 days at or above 87 degrees and a total of only 0.5" of rain. In the week since then, it has rained more than an inch (2X+ in less than half the time), but feels like more, as it seems to be off and on. Hopefully this won’t impact the ability of the fruit to stay on the trees.
I have 14 jujube trees in their 3rd year and only one seems to have a noticable amount of fruit on it (Chico). All are in as sunny of locations as I could find for them- at least as good, if not better than the oldest So.
Aside from So, the other one with a lot of fruit set is a Sugar Cane from Burnt Ridge in 2012. It spent a few years in a pot, until planted in Aug 2014. Since then, it has made only 1-2 fruits (total), but this year both Bok Jo and September late grafts from last spring (thanks Scott!) appear quite productive, along with the remaining Sugar Cane tree. When I potted it, I just mounded up soil around it, so maybe it took some time for the roots to escape. It’s also possible that having it planted that way lets it dry out a bit more than the other trees. But I suspect that the largest factor is age. It seems that somewhere around year 4 a magical switch is thrown. At least in my area- in Las Vegas it comes pre-enabled at planting.
the trend you’ve observed is surely something to refer to or look forward to by juju growers in your area
your bok jo graft here also is proving to be very productive relative to expanse of branching(on its second year grafted on sc). The lone fruit it produced last year was very sweet and crisp btw, similar to mayazao and r4t3 in taste and texture.
last but not least, below are the stark differences between one of your contorted budwood(grafted to sc, seen below with larger, roundish and dimpled fruits) and burntridge’s contorted(grafted to spinosa-type rootstock with smaller and ovoid fruits that have never produced sunken/dimpled fruits all these years). Already tried the one semi-ripe fruit shown in the pic and the taste and texture were similar to burntridge’s, but also different. Will report back once the larger fruits start ripening, as the semi-ripe fruit, being smaller, was probably not as indicative of the true qualities as the larger fruits.
the only thing stopping me from concluding that your budwood is a totally different strain of contorted is because the other budwood you gave me that you’ve verified to be from the same tree is producing the same small ovoid shapes as burntridge’s, and only variable was that we grafted that to li.
next year, we will be grafting burntridge’s to the same sc that yours is grafted to, and should finalize the verdict if the fruits continue to differ in quality and characteristics after a year or two.
I agreed with Bob.V. that aged and hot sunny weather will also help with production. But I also think cross pollination is an important factor as well. I have 4 Honey Jar jujube and the one closest to my large full grown jujube rootstock had the most fruits.
forgot to add though @tonyOmahaz5 that there are multitudes of spinosa-type rootstock(unlike m1’s and citations, for jujus, we don’t even know anymore which one might be the true spinosa, as nurseries use random seed, which have been products of cross-pollination, to grow their rootstock), so the rootstock you have might be the most favored by hj.
Yes we’ll both eat & dry. My wife uses the dried jujubees year round for tea etc. My Chico is affected by my mystery illness (cotton root rot, too much nitrogen, ???) & I may not get those this year
That’s sad…maybe it will rally… my Contorted is kinda sad this year. I’m going to get soil samples and adjust (maybe when it starts raining again) and next year I’m going to feed them in February.
That’s very encouraging. I took pictures this morning and was thinking that Bok Jo is growing like a weed (5’ tall, grafted a foot from the ground last spring) and has a very heavy fruit load, so it will probably turn out to be foul tasting
Speaking of not good tasting, here’s a pic of Huping. Scott referred to it as a “spitter” a year or two ago and I think I had a very dry one as well. This year it looks to be carrying a heavier load, so maybe I can dry a few. The shape is interesting- almost like a peanut (in the shell).
Yup, that looks like my So. Here’s a pic of me with a handful a couple years ago. I’m interested in how this turns out. I’d offer to graft your variety, but I don’t know if you want to wait 3-4 years to know how it turns out Bok Jo is an out-lier in terms of early fruiting (as is Honey Jar).
Here’s a pic of my So this year. This branch isn’t that high off the ground and I’m a bit surprised it has this many fruit.
That’s good to hear. So it is a bit like Chico? Hopefully it isn’t too late for me. September for you could be November for me, as I’m at least 1.5 months from any ripening.
I can’t really measure that very well- I don’t think that there is anywhere in my yard (at least with any jujubes growing) that there aren’t at least 3 other varieties within 40 feet (often 10’). And the old So probably has at least 10 and probably a few more.
My Honey Jar is pretty well covered too, but not on the same scale as Tony’s.
not foul-tasting , i can safely predict I didn’t get to test for brix but am confident it will attain 30+
as for our bok jo graft, it developed a strong upright earlier this year but was lopped off at the green tender stage by our howling spring storms. The old laterals produced a lot but also got de-fruited by recent stormy weather. Couldn’t help but continuously whine about year 2018, lol
just tell me if you’re interested grafting some burntridge’s contorted to your trees. As for the waiting, it is only painstaking if none of your trees are productive. Used to be overtly impatient with having to wait for named varieties to bear fruits, but now way more interested in developing new cultivars from seed than acquiring budwood of cultivars i never had. I mean, if just started planting jujus for the first time in my life this year, growing them from seed would be torture
sept late is more of a jujube tart than apple tart, while chico is the other way around. Apples supposedly diverged from juju’s parents millions of years ago, and chico happens to have acquired the same apple-tart genes passed on to apples from their common ancestor/s.
and yes, sept late does ripen here at around mid sept, but never say never @BobVance . You have been getting many of your jujus to fruit consistently where you’re at, so negatory anecdotes shouldn’t mean much to you
Bought this from a Middle Eastern grocery store. Don’t know the variety. The clerk said they got them from CA.
All except the brown one tasted like cardboard, expensive cardboard
( $3.99/lbs). Texture was spongy and dry while tasted very bland. They made my Shanxi Li, which I complained that they were spongy and dry, tasted like Honey Jar.
I still don’t know what to do with the rest (over a lb). The brown one was sweeter and crunchier. But it was the only one.
For anyone who are foreign to jujubes, if you ate these as your first jujubes, you would not try another jujube again. They were that awful!!!
I didn’t get to test for brix but am confident it will attain 30+
