Mamuang,
That is a tough choice for you to make. I have some sunny spaces left that is why I plan to have 10 HJs to make up for the Shanxi Li size. All my in laws already begging for the HJ fruits from the samples that gave to them.
Tony
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Donāt worry about the size if youāre looking for flavor.
Get some So, Honey Jar or Sugar Cane. Any of these three would be my personal choice first before any other variety.
Iām always looking to add new varieties, but they are hard to find.
Last month I was in CA and met Roger Meyer widow Shirley.
She had about 30 or 40 grafted trees in pots. She does not ship, but she had a few names that might be highly desirable by some collectors.
She did not have any of the Russian varieties, but I managed to get her last two autumn beauties and two rare varieties, namely Kumme and Li Zhou.
These little trees had some delicious fruit on them.
Once sheās done with what she has, itās game over.
By the was CoCo and Black Sea Jujube varieties appear to be very promising for patient gardeners. This is based on a few fruits I piked from my seedlings.
Iām not sure but Massandra could be another name for Lang, if anyone knows for sure please let me know.
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Tony,
You are the best in-law they have ever had.
@Sas, thanks for your input. Honestly, the more I read about jujubes, the more I want to try other varieties. @jujubemulberry mentioning of sihong and chico, sparks my interest, too.
Just wonder any east coasters have tasted sihong and chico. What are your opinions growing them in the east?
When I lived in CT, I grew what I believe was a So Tree in my yard and it did very well. You will like the So fruit and the tree is very ornamental.
I managed to get a Sihong and a Chico from a Roger before we lost him. I planted them in a wildlife area I own, but none of these trees have fruited as they are still too small. I havenāt been able to check on them recently. Hopefully theyāre still alive. So I have no idea what these will taste like.
In general jujube trees are very slow growers and the larger the tree you can get the shorter the time to get fruit. I originally got my first five trees from Edible Landscaping and they were in a three gallon pots if I recall correctly. That was over five or six years ago. Theyāre still yielding about a couple of pounds per year. The soil does not help, but irrigation is very important if you want crispy and delicious fruit. The other day I bought some Li fruit from an oriental grocery store and they had no flavor. I simply couldnāt enjoy them. Once you taste your own you get hooked.
My producing varieties are Lang Li So Tiger Tooth and Sugar Cane. They are all awesome ripening at different times . Sugar Cane is first followed by So Li Lang and Tiger Tooth in that order aproximately. Sugar Cane is very tasty but not as productive as other varieties so far. So is very productive with a very well balanced flavor. If you only have room for one tree, and Honey Jar is not available So would be my first choice.
Iām not sure how Hardy Honey Jar is, but it is the first tree along with sugar Cane to shed in the fall.
HJ can handled -16F so far in Omaha with no problem. Btw, when is your Tigertooth ripened? How good, sweet compare to Lang or HJ?
Tony
TigerTooth is getting better with age. Overall I find it less juicy than So to say the least, it is not my favorite for fresh eating and since I do not dry any of my jujube fruit at present, I cannot comment on drying it, but might be a great candidate for drying. One advantage is that this is the latest ripening tree I have, which is September/October after harvesting the others by several weeks. This variety extends my season for sure.
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I had a variety called Tsao which was tiger toothed in shape, not sure if it is the same or not (there is plenty of mixing up in the names). It sounds like yours, not very juicy. It was really productive though, my most productive until I topworked it.
Kumme is Cliffās wifeās name so maybe that variety came from Cliff? I have half a dozen obscure varieties from Cliff but none called Kumme.
Thanks for the info on Black Sea, I have that one but bought it as a stock. I didnāt topwork it yet and I will let it grow out.
What part of the country are you in Sas? It always good to hear people getting reliable fruiting on jujubes as it has been a problem for many of us. I made it worse by not having them enough space or sun but have new plantings to hopefully solve that.
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hj is much earlier than shanxi(at least from my experience with them for several years), so one shouldnāt be favored over the other, as this facilitates a continuity of fresh fruits.
sihong and chico are both worth trying in my opinion, even though they seem to be unheard of in the northeast, or mainly because they are simply not productive there.
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CCHi Scott,
Iām currently in North Austin TX, zone 8b
Jujube is one of my favorite fruits.
Just received two more Jujube trees from One Green World. @ $40 per tree these are not cheap to say the least. My problem is not the price, but the size. Iād have to nurse them for several years in pot before I plant them.
I currently have ten different jujube trees in my yard with over half as very young ones. They 6 year old ones are Lang, Li, So, TigerTooth and Sugar Cane,
The rest are Honey Jar, Coco, Black Sea, Sherwood, GA 186.
During the spring of last year, I also planted 12 new trees at a remote land that I own. These included sugar Cane, Li, Honey Jar, Don Polenski, Jim, Sihong,
Ant Admire, Mu, Shu Min, Tsao, Shanxi Li, GI 762, Gi 1183. Except for the Sugar Cane and Honey Jar, these trees came from Roger Meyer, shortly before he passed away. Those ones are not bring irrigated and have not produced any fruit yet. I will have to check on their condition soon as Iāve been unable to do it in recent months.
I know that I lost my Don Polenski. I mowed it by accident. Lol
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Sounds like a great plan. Iām thinking about something similar, though I may not bag it- whatever I mix with HJ could be good. One thing Iāve been trying to do, mostly for practice right now, is to crack open the pits to get at the seeds. It is pretty tough going and I destroyed about 20-25 in order to get these 3. And one of the 3 is still stuck half way in, while another has some damage, which could prevent germination. And to top it off, I was working on them for at least half an hour.
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Hi @Sas, massandra is not the same as lang. Massandra is a bit elongated while lang is pear-shaped. Will post some pix when i find them
btw, glad to hear you got some of the remaining few from Shirley.
Bob,
I used a vice grip and slowly tighten up until I get the seed to barely crack and forced open with my fingers or a small knife. You will damaged some seeds until you turned the vice grip to the right degree. Btw, I will do the control crossed pollination of the HJ and Raf and you and others can do the open pollination of HJ. We will swap woods when we the seedlings size up enough to swap scionwoods. Are We in?
Tony
If the pit is dry it may crack easier. Grinding or sanding the pit may help.
exactly what we do, as it is least likely to damage. Some pits are just stubborn and asymmetric and could still result in inadvertent crushing.
am in!
When you āharvestā the seeds what state of maturity does the fruit need to be in?
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I harvested the fruits when they turned mahogany. Let the seeds dry for a week by the window sill then cracked them up with a vice grip.
Tony
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Sounds good, thanks. It makes sense that something I can slowly tighten would work better than whacking it or squeezing by handā¦
I wasnāt sure if it would hurt it to dry out. I vaguely remember that some seeds are no longer viable after drying out. Iāve still got some from a few days ago, when I gave up on cracking more, so they should be dryer by now.
Did the seed look like the ones I had above, or were they darker? Do they take long to germinate?
Sounds good to me. I think I only have one more HJ left on the tree, so unless I get lucky with that one, Iāll need to start next year.
Bob,
My seeds are more yellow than yours but I think yours will be fine. I put them in a zip lock and stored them in the refrig. and I plan to grow them out in pots in early March. I also buried a bunch of seeds straight into the ground with the whole pits like stone fruis to see if they come up in the Spring for trial. Maybe Raf can input more on the seeds collection and storage.
Tony
I managed to end up with four Honey Jar Seedlings from seeds last year in the fall.
I used the few seeds from my small tree which yielded a few fruits. The Honey Jar is very prolific for its size. On a two foot tree I mustāve ended up with about 25 seeds but most of them were empty. Now I have four seedlings growing in a five gallon container, I also gave one to my next door neighbor. I did not even refrigerate the seeds. Just cracked them with a hand vice grip. After sprouting in the fall the seedlings went dormant (I thought that they died) then came back in the spring.
These should be interesting to graft when theyāre ready. I might even let them grow and see what kind of fruit I get.
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