Hi all, 

First time short time here.    Decided earlier this year to expand from figs and grab a jujube from a local nursery here in Houston.  It's a Li variety that is grafted, I put it in a 6gal pot as I plan on moving later this year and didn't wanna leave it behind  :)  It's doing a great job coming out of dormancy, but I've noticed it has some shoots / suckers? coming up from the root ball about 5" to 6" away from the tree itself.  

Is this normal?  My initial thought was to cut them back to focus all the energy to the tree itself.  But if I plant this in ground later this year, could one of these shoots become viable later on?

Thanks for the insight.  Pic below.

Usually you would normally prune these suckers, unless you want a thicket.  

You could dig these out when they are dormant during the winter and practice your grafting skills if you wish.

Here's another possibility. Lat year I purchased a grafted Norris #1 from Hidden Springs nursery. After receiving it the graft died. It was replaced free of charge by the nursery. I chose to pay for shipping.They were very helpful and always answer my questions.
Despite the loss of the graft, I ended up with a shoot from beneath the soil and left the plant on the side all summer long without paying attention to it, except watering it along with my other plants.
It appears that this shoot will be loaded with fruit this year. I don't know what they will look like, nor the variety of the rootstock. It turns out that even the nursery don't know what the rootstock variety is. If the fruit turns out to be of poor quality, not that I'm good at it, I could always attempt to do a graft.
In the photo you will see the new Norris#1 on the left and on the right the old plant showing lots of flowers on the new shoot and where the graft totally died.

In the past I visited Matt Family orchard in your area. He has lots of Li jujubes, I was told that he has one tree with a smaller fruit that the other ones. The graft initially died on that one but a shoot grew into a fruit bearing tree of smaller size fruit but still a desirable flavor. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to tell which is which at that time.

Good luck with it.

I have a similar circumstance with a lang that i received this past year. My thoughts were leave it for future grafting or a cross pollinator. My hope is that i can dig it out once its big enough and go from there:)

From my experience, once planted in the ground the suckers will spread as the tree grows, and they will have terrible thorns on them if not mowed down.  I had to move my trees farther away from neighboring plants and other fruit trees.

When you plant it in ground, make sure you can mow all the way around it. Jujube sucker like mad, sending suckers way way out from the parent plant.

I have a few 5 or 6 year old trees in my yard yielding some fruit every season now and so far I don't see the sucker problem as bad as people say it is.
Perhaps I'm missing something.
Saijo and Terry, how old are your trees and when did the suckers become a problem?

Sas my trees are 4 to 5 years old, don't remember which ones but some sent those suckers way way out also as Terry implied. The suckers became a problem when they were about 3 or 4 years old. Perhaps you keep your yard mowed very often before they grow up but it really doesn't take long for them to out grow the grass.

Carl

I've had a Li jujube growing in the front yard for around ten to fifteen years now and will never plant a jujube in the ground again. It has suckered all over my front yard, popping up in hard to weed places. The thorns make it difficult to pull out. I missed one sucker in my apple hedge and it grew large enough to produce one small jujube the size of a blueberry.
I also have a Sugar Cane jujube growing in a fifteen gallon pot which has never produced fruit. I read that it needs to be pollinated by another jujube, so I will be moving it next to the Li tree and hope to get fruit this year.  

I noticed this year that sugar cane buds out later than my other jujube varieties including Li and drops its leaves earlier in the fall.
It is in ground next to the other varieties but has not produced as generously as my other trees.

Mara is spot on. Don't put them in the ground! Haha, they sucker up to 30 feet away AND consistently. My advice... keep them in at the minimum a 10 gallon pot. Also, keep a few suckers if you want more varieties. On the plus side, they produce lots of rootstock for grafting!