3 year old jujube plant have questions

I have 2 three year old jujube plants, they are putting off fruit this year but none ever seem to stay on till they ripe, meaning their the size of pin heads now and will not last long.

I 'm not sure what kind of jujubes I have, I got them from raintreenursery.com Do they need a pollenizer? I guess that would depend on the variety I have and since I do see tiny fruit out there I guess I don't need a pollenator. But why don't I get fruit , it's full of those little dots and has flowered already the fruit is no bigger than dot size though.

I'll see if I can't get a pic of the plants today, their about 4 foot tall and one has sent out 4 or 5 suckers , which I've potted to trade off once they go through shock

You probably have a Li or Lang.

Have you had lots of rain and horrible humidity this year?

Is your soil clay?

My Jujube had bumper crops last year during the drought and have meager crops this year. Although, they have put on tremendous growth.

Here are some things I have noticed for me.

High humidity and excessive rain = lower crops on young trees or young trees on clay.

I am experiencing this on many varieties including Li.

I know that a Jujube farm South of here is having a tremendous year with Li and I wonder if that has to do with the age of the trees or the soil type. I have a heavy soil and I believe the heavy rains and heavy clay have had something to do with it.

Also, trees that put on a huge amount of growth in a season usually fruit less.

You definitely need two varieties to increase yields.

The tree needs to be in full sun. If they are getting shaded out, they will drop fruit.

Wasps and ants are some of the primary pollinators of Jujube flowers. Are you using insecticide in your lawn to keep ants out?

Plants in pots have always given me low yields.

Dont get discouraged. If they are established, full sun and you have at least one Li, you will get fruit in large quantities eventually.

Also, those suckers are rootstock and are good for nothing other than grafting. They will grow and fruit fast but the fruit will be small and of inferior taste.

I'm sorry I thought I answered this.

First off, I went out there and no berries yet, just blooms, what I thought were berries/ fruit was actually bloom buds. it's full of bloom buds.

I'm not sure why or when or how come I ordered two of the same varieties, but I"m pretty sure their both identical . So your saying I won't get any fruit ? or just low fruit yeilds with 2 of the same variety.


Not clay but good soil out there.

but we did get lots of early rains in the spring and then we were hit with 95 degree and above for 3 weeks with no rain what so ever. very humid also

both trees/bushes are in the ground, and in full sun.

If those suckers will fruit, then they aren't good for nothing I would think. are you saying a jujube has to be grafted? I'm thinking mine aren't grafted bushes . but i can't remember.

so I f I only have one variety out there in both those jujubes Iw on't get fruit right? cause they are definitely big enough to fruit . maybe they weren't last year. we'll see how it goes.

It seems late to be blooming since most Jujube bloom in late April/May but that is okay.

You will get fruit from two of the same tree but not as much as you would get from two different trees.

Jujube love the heat and actually require it to fruit.

Most Jujube dont like really high humidity for extended periods and sometimes will have poor yields because of it.

The suckers generally produce tiny marble sized fruit with large seeds. The fruit is generally not very good tasting.

Most Jujube are grafted unless they were sold as seedlings. If you purchased them at a nursery or at a good online store, they should be grafted. If you remember where you got them, I could research it more.

The suckers also steal nourishment from the main tree so most people mow them down or pull them up.

yes, I got them at www.raintreenursery.com not sure which variety though, which is strange, cause I label everything

we are getting extreme heat, 99 average here. I appreciate all the help.

the blooms on these plants aren't even as big as a pencil eraser. their smaller than that.

They carry four types at Raintree but only three when you ordered. I suspect it isnt Contorted or you would have mentioned how crazy the tree goes in all directions. So you probably have Li, Lang or Li and Lang.

Dont worry about the heat. Mine took 69 days over 100 last year and had a full crop.

The flowers are always dainty. If you are getting decent pollination, you should see ants, flies and wasps on them during the day.

Make sure they get water at least once a week during fruit formation if it doesnt rain.

How much growth have they put on since you planted them? They should have sulked the first year and just produced fruiting branches that fall off in winter. The second year you should have had some permanent lateral branching. This year you should have fewer lateral and more flowers and fruit.

I see lots of wasps and wood bees. their driving me nuts. LOL but I leave them alone, we don't spray or anything for ants and I see ants on lots of other plants but haven't noticed any on the jujubes. I'll be sure to leave them alone if they are on the plant though

I'll go take a pic of them

they were about 8 inches tall when I planted them.

here's one of them

their maybe 5 l/2 feet tall maybe taller. 6 foot. I'm 4 foot l0 so everything is huge to me LOL

A close up of the leaves and flowers.

They have plenty of thorns but you can't really see much of them in that close up

Were they 8 inches tall but thicker than a pencil or 8 inches tall and very thin?
If you look at the base of the tree, you should see where he grafted the new wood on the rootstock. Is all the tall growth coming from above the graft point or below it. Those trees look an awful lot like rootstock but new growth often looks like rootstock at first.

You sure have lots of flowers.

I have some tangerine trees (pot grown) and jap maples that are grafted and checked the jujubes , they don't look grafted unless I planted them that deep to not show the graft.

I did get two single plants from raintreenursery and they were decent sized, bigger than pencel at the base and probably taller than 8 inches, it's been a while, I can't really rememeber how tall they were when I got them.

I hope I don't have junk LOL

If they were that thick, then they were grafted. Sometimes it sends up growth from below the graft that you have to pinch off because it is more vigorous that the graft. I bet you will get some fruit either way this year. In the worst case senario, I could send you some new grafting wood this winter and show you how to graft your own.

Yeah, I have to do that to my japanese maples alot cause they send up growth from below the graft.

I also have a fruit tree out there, lost the top part above the graft but the bottom (below the graft) is growing out like mad, wanted to see what it was, it's full of thorns. the tree above the graft was a tangerine tree.

It could by Flying Dragon Citrus. It has long thorns and grows very zig zag. Get some Kumquat or Satsuma wood and graft to it. The Flying Dragon fruit is very hard and basically all seeds and no pulp.