Honey Jar and Sugar Cane Jujubes just became available!

Wow! Your jujube success has been very fast! That’s terrific! I look forward to your reports on Sihong. From the sampling @jujubemulberry (RAF) sent me Honey Jar was great, Li was good, but I rank Sihong slightly higher. Hard to find that Sihong though. I don’t see any available for sale at current time. Great job again Kate! We all love and enjoy your great passion you share with all of us here!

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I first tasted jujubes about 30 years ago. A coworker had a tree in her yard that she called a date tree and she would bring Walmart bags full of fresh fruit for us to eat. They were sweet and fairly crisp. They were about 1-2 inches long and about 1/2-3/4 inch in diameter. Brown ripe. Any guesses on what cultivar it was? Sherwood? She just insisted that they were dates.

Katy

Autumn Beauty #1. Right behind, in no particular order, are Honeyjar, SugarCane, Shihong, Li, and Chico

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As impatient as I am on everything I am still wishing my young trees would grow faster and bear more fruit!!! :flushed::flushed::flushed::joy: Raf @jujubemulberry sent samples to me too and I agree with your assessment. I have been chasing SiHong for a couple of years and was unable to find it. I ordered mine from England’s for this spring and it was a large bareroot (5 foot) that has grown really well. England’s is still showing it on their list of available trees but I’m not sure when they will be selling again. I am so hoping it does well and glad that I hear productive reports on it from @Bhawkins who is about 75 miles from me. Another one I like is Chico and that one has produced well for me this year for a young tree.

I was out eating off the trees earlier. My Honey Jar had about a dozen fruits last year and probably well over 150 this year…I consider it sad that it is so few still I can actually “count” them!! Did I mention that I am impatient? I’ve taken a few to work. I still have probably 50 on the tree that I’m hoarding. I’ve had about 6-7 Autumn Beauty and those are good too…similar to HJ but larger.

I’m excited that one of my grafts is doing so well. I put @castanea’s Orange Beauty on a HJ seedling and now half the tree is OB. It bloomed this year but did not fruit. Looking forward to that.

Okay Zack…you asked for it…you got me started talking about my jujubes.

Katy

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At least first aid is close at hand when the snap trap gets them…

I don’t think Hav-a-heart traps are big enough and even if they were, what do you do with them after catching them? :slight_smile:

More seriously, how do you pick the fruit from a 25’ tree? A very tall ladder or just shake the tree over a tarp?

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HJ’s are difficult to count due to their bunching patterns, so that settles it-- i concede to Katy’s juju obsession. I thought my obsession was unbeatable, haha

seen some kids(both young and old) in the neighborhood picking from our front yard trees. I don’t mind people picking from our trees, but will try to catch them in the act and offer to get them started with their own seedlings. More dignified and more promising to get free trees than going to your neighbor’s property to get free fruits…

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A few Chico

Chico have been very good but have needed to be at least half brown. Maybe that is typical for them. ??? Sweet and “lemony”

Katy

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our potted massandra, autumn b, and winter d had the same symptoms. I was moving them around the yard to get the most sun exposure, but forgot to water or underwatered. They are growing new fruiting stems now, just like yours, and are also flowering, so i guess i saved them just in time :grin:

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I have some seedlings that look the same but are now putting out good growth and in some cases blooming. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to which ones are doing this. Possibly some that got a smaller portion of water?? I dunno.

Katy

My SiHong is blooming…about to be blooming heavily. Should I take my heavy blooming rootstock out and set it next to the SiHong?

Katy

jujus tend to be laggards on some years and then vigorous in other years. From what have observed, their overall growth kind of evens out at about 5 yrs, as most would be of the same height and canopy diameter.

definitely won’t hurt doing that. I hope it bears some, if not many, fruits for you!

btw,congrats on your chico bounty! If sihong is plum-ish, chico is the most apple-ish.

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Beautiful!!

A rake works to 12’. Then we shake the tree. If I do it just right, I seem to hit a resonant frequency, & it rains jujubee’s on my head.I need to record the process sometime, its comical

I’d rather keep them at 8-10ft; but a couple years after I planted these, the City added trees on their property line; 6 ft east of my trees; 12-15 ft tall. So I let these tree’s grow above the City’s trees to get some sun.

"jujubemulberry29m Bhawkins
"our potted massandra, autumn b, and winter d had the same symptoms. "

I agree, looks like they need water. But the grass 2 ft away is lush, they get sprinklered 3x a week, been in ground over 2 years, moisture meter says they’re fine. I’m guessing Cotton Root Rot has destroyed a lot of their roots. Or something is keeping them from taking in the water…

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you are right, was busy overseeing the trees that i overlooked the field of green…

damaged/diseased roots are most likely the cause, since it simulates drought. Good thing about jujus is that they have the ability to self-amputate diseased/compromised stems and also able to destroy infected cells via autophagy, so with the loss of stems/foliage, the tree may resume business like it was a bare-root coming out of dormancy. The amount of viable roots will then limit the amount of foliage to re-grow, so ratio of roots vs stomata will favor ability of roots to channel moisture vs moisture losses via transpiration.

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Here is a sugar cane seedling that was looking really good and then suddenly developed what looks like the same as @Bhawkins trees and then began growing again with new growth that looks perfect. Now it is blooming. This seedling is a year old.

Katy

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This is my SiHong. Planted bare root this spring from England’s. It bloomed early but did not fruit. Is now putting on a growth spurt and blooming again. I have four potted plants that I’m putting around it. One is a rootstock that is blooming heavily and another is a HJ seedling that is blooming heavily. I’m also putting sugar cane and HJ seedlings that are beginning to bloom with it mainly because I took my heavy bloomers out of the nursery with them and I want the seedlings to be near the bloomers. So…here’s my SiHong and the new grouping!

Perhaps you are right!

Katy

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Love it Kate! Looks terrific! I look forward to getting my Sihong whenever I can find one.

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Keep checking with England’s. How far are they from you?

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i see some subtle characteristics of foliage indicating likelihood of it being a sihong. You could also try comparing stiffness of its upright stem vs. stiffness of other cultivars of similar caliper. Sihong branches rarely sag, even when loaded with fruits, and seem to be at least as stiff as sugarcane wood. Sihong also tends to delay lignification or rough bark-formation, often maintaining a smooth, even glossy, outer surface of its stems at 2" caliper, whereas most other jujus get rough and ‘barky’ quite early at ~1.5" caliper

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Yeah I will. Not far. Google says 240 mile drive. Probably will take a trip there in fall. :+1::heavy_check_mark::grin:

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