Pretty much every tree you’re familiar with has main branches and sub-branches that resemble each other despite age and location on the tree.
Jujube trees however, are quite unusual with a most atypical branch structure!

There are four very different branch types — not all may be present on a very young tree under two years of age, but all four will always be found on older trees.

Recognising and understanding the role of each of these branch types helps enormously in the management of your tree. Each will be covered in detail in following chapters, but for now these four branch types are summarised below:

Primary/Permanent/Extension Branches
Extension branches are the thickest, longest and straightest of the four. They grow over many years and determine the shape and size of the tree.
Additional extension branches, as well as secondary and fruiting mother branches all grow from buds on these branches.

Secondary/Non-Extension Branches
Secondary branches do all their growing in one year, and have a distinctive zig-zag shape caused by the alternating nodes changing the direction of growth. Fruiting branchlets grow on these branches in the first year, then fruiting mother branches develop from the second year on.

Fruiting Mother Branches
These resemble pine cones though they are actually branches of highly compressed shoots and buds. These are the branches from which the fruiting branchlets grow.

A new extension branch will also grow from a fruiting mother branch when the right bud breaks dormancy.

Fruiting Branchlets
Fruiting branchlets (not branches) are the sole flowering and fruiting structures on jujube trees. These are also deciduous, falling off every winter and growing anew every spring. They arise from buds on secondary branches and fruiting mother branches.

Fruiting mother branches can produce up to ten fruiting branchlets in a whorl: