Does anyone grow Globe? I’ve been growing it for years and it is the worst tasting jujube I have ever grown. It has beautiful fruit but they have no flavor at all. I’m wondering if anyone else has the same experience with it.
i agree. I used to be too critical of certain varieties, namely, lang, ant admire, contorted, and even sugarcane, but realized it may just be a local soil/weather/irrigation thing. And taste is quite subjective too. . Can’t believe some people like the wild-type fruits as much as they do the sweeter types.
with jujus, it is probably necessary to grow as many varieties in one’s location as one can handle/afford and just cull the lackluster ones after several years, or keep them all, since the specimens will try to bear plenty fruits even as youngsters, and may give the impression the stems have seasoned altogether and that the fruits won’t get any better.
so if am moving to, say, another state or even just to reno, nv(from vegas), will be compelled to re-try growing all the varieties have grown here, as what i liked here may not be the same there, and what i disliked here might be excellent there.
jujus are like pokemon–you have got to “catch 'em all” .
and if you should go, you have to do the pokemon-go and catch 'em all, yet again 
incidentally, i like black sea as well-- and already-- despite just recently obtaining it as a bare-root 10" tall runt. A precocious and hardy variety which was steadfast in holding on to its fruits despite missing out on irrigation several times this summer. Virtually immune to fruit-drop!
if fruits were ok to me this year, then safe to look forward to it getting better over the years.
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same here. Fruits were huge, but no bueno. I still have this variety grafted somewhere out there. Didn’t even bother to safeguard the labels. Glad to have at least a picture or two, lol
forgot to ask, are you in AZ ?
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I’m in the California central valley, Sacramento County. I lived in Las Vegas for 6 years but didn’t grow anything while I was there. What I seem to notice about jujubes is that they like to have a warm spring and warmth while flowering. If it gets too cool in the spring or during flowering, the flavor in some of them doesn’t seem to develop very well. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the summer highs are 100 or 105 or even 110, but if we have extended cooler days with very cool nights that may impact the flavors. The main growing areas in China seem to be areas in zones 8 and 9 with high humidity and consistent warmth during flowering and fruiting. I visited Xian China this Fall and had some excellent jujubes.
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Glad you showed up here, folks with jujube experience are greatly appreciated!
My main problem is fruit set (I’ll put a link to the long thread about it below), and I think it is related to cool and/or humid during bloom but I am not certain. Your area and Las Vegas are perfect spots for jujubes.
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With Sherwood I don’t think it’s necessarily the climate. I have hot dry summers most years but my Sherwood produced almost no fruit at all for at least 10 years. GA866 was also very slow to start producing.
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Yes I think those two are well-known as super late. I never got a single fruit on either of them in ten years.
One interesting point you made above is how Xian is relatively high humidity. I just checked and the humidity is similar to what mine is. So it seems the “hot” is more the need and not the “dry”. I was in Xian years ago and remember it as being very hot and dusty. Actually the main thing I remember is everyone wore a blue Mao suit… long time ago!
small world!
believe it or not, and hate to say it, but was really hoping your findings were similar to ours. Our jujus are much better tasting once our vegas summers start fading . The fruits at the height of summer are huge, but the smaller ones we get in late summer/fall are much better tasting almost across the board.
truly inscrutable this fruit tree!
But your heat is freakish. I don’t think 100 impacts jujube much at all, or even 105, but when you start getting above 110 I imagine it impacts a jujube even if they don’t show it. And when you have nights over 100 I think it has an impact also. Jujubes just did not evolve to deal with that environment. Having said that, their fluctuations in flavor are difficult to understand. I think the impact of temperatures is delayed. Possibly the cool temps we experience here sometimes during flowering results in poor flavor when the fruit matures much later during summer heat and good tasting fruit in the fall may be the result of high temperatures during flowering and not cool temperatures when the fruit matures.
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was waiting for you to say that, as haven’t looked up your climate. Our regular li’s actually approximate the size of shanxi’s here, but aren’t as good in cooler weather.
forgot to add, some of our sherwood and ga-866 were fruitful on their first year, but then again, also beginning to think there might be discrepancies in fruit id’s, as have sourced each of them from just one nursery. Several of our jujus(of the same names but from different sellers) look and taste different, and i thought it was just me, but lately saw some posts here showing shanxi li to be totally different from ours, which is even more extreme since it is supposed to be the largest of jujus, and two different-looking jujus claiming to be ‘the largest’ sounds the alarm the loudest.
I think people have been selling trees as Shanxi Li that weren’t really Shanxi Li. I’m not even sure what the real Shanxi Li is like. When I lived in LV we got up to 123 once. The official high for that day was 117 or 118 but they lie about temperatures so as not to freak out tourists. I had a thermometer in the shade that read 122 that day and every bank that showed time and temperature was showing 122 or 123. Date palms like that kind of heat but not much else. I always wondered how jujubes would do in that heat and once recommended to a friend in LV with a small backyard that she should plant a couple of jujubes but she never did.
heard about the ‘temperature-rigging’ that they’ve been doing here(just when everyone is suspicious about slot machines being rigged, lol), but haven’t really done a home temp vs media-declared temp. Will try to document it next year, since we have a place close to mccarran
glad to hear it isn’t just me.
moreover, the norris dam jujus are also dubious, especially when obtained from different sources.
I lived near Trop on Spencer east of Mrld Pkwy and not too far from UNLV and it wasn’t even one of the hottest areas in Clark County and we regularly beat the official temperatures.
small world indeed, as you are practically our daughter’s neighbor! When were you there?
1979-85
that is so cool.
btw, my apologies to @mamuang , as got carried away with all my excitement…
ok, back to topic
@jujubemulberry. No need to apologize. It is interesting to know about everybody’s background. I enjoys learning about geography and culture to begin with.
@castanea - welcome aboard. Your experience with jujubes is very valuable. Thank you for posting. Look forward to more of your posts and pics.
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Hi Castanea, how long did Autumn Beauty take to bear for you? mine was slow, 6-7 years.
btw, thanks for all the info. I just ordered a couple Black Sea Jujube’s from ogw; since it was your best tasting one this year i’ll try it! I actually planted one a year ago but the spot doesn’t get a lot of sun, I’ll give them a better chance this time.
Castenea,
You said you grow a lot of jujubes in pots. Would you be able to share what is the potting mix you use, please?
I am no more space in my yard, especially full sun for jujube. I want to grow them in pots. I would like to start with the right mix. Thank you.
My AB had fruit the 2nd or 3rd year I believe. I have been growing jujubes for more than 20 years and have used at least 20 different potting mixes, in part because some are dreadfully bad and I had to quit using them. But also over that time period some potting mixes became unavailable and others changed their formulation. There was a really long discussion of this general problem on some gardening forum a year or two ago. Potting mixes vary widely in their availability in different parts of the country and the same mixes in the same year will often have different formulations in different regions since they use locally available materials. People have different theories about what they want to use. I prefer to use low nutrient mixes that drain well and then I add nutrients. Other people prefer to use high nutrient mixes. Some people prefer to use mixes that do not drain quickly because they don’t have to water as often but that depends on what you’re growing. Jujubes seem to do well across a range of pH. Jujubes also seem to do fine in well drained mixes or mixes that drain slowly. Roger Meyer used a very heavy, very slow draining mix with an alkaline pH but I don’t think jujubes grew well in that mix. I don’t think he wanted his trees to grow very quickly though and I think he wanted to be able to skip watering without putting the trees at risk. I never got around to asking him what he used but I hated it because the pots were so heavy. The only consistent conclusion we came to in the forum discussion was to avoid Scott mixes because they have shown a wide variety of problems in different parts of the country for many years. People were also not happy with Miracle Grow mixes. We also concluded generally that there are frequently problems with the cheapest mixes available at the big box stores. The nice thing here in California is that the varieties of good (but sometimes expensive) mixes that have become available over the last 20 years is amazing, largely in response to cannabis growers demanding a premium product. My current preferred potting mix for jujubes is Vitality Blend Organic Potting Soil which is produced in Nevada City California and generally available only in only a few places in NorCal.
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