I’m thinking of growing jujubes but I’m not sure that southeast MA zone 6b is hot enough to actually get fruit out of them. I would choose Sugarcane and Honey Jar which are cold hardy compared to other jujubes but I don’t want to get trees if they won’t fruit well here.
Has anyone else grown jujubes successfully in a climate similar to mine? They would be in containers. I could put them on a patio or driveway that would stay hotter than the lawn.
Jujubes can tolerate zone 6, both a and b. I am in 6a in central MA and have grown jujubes in ground since 2017.
May I ask why you want to keep your trees in pots? Potted trees are not easy to deal with. I don’t think jujubes are happy in pots. I have 4 root suckers in 4 pots because I do not have sunny spots in ground for them (yet). I have up-potted them and they are not productive.
jujubes needs full sun, esp. in northern areas like ours. Sun from dawn to dusk would be ideal.
How well do they produce for you? Which varieties do you have and which ones didn’t fruit in pots?
The reason I use pots is because my sunlight exposure changes over the season due to the angle of the sun and from year to year as trees grow and are cut down, so I need to be able to move them. I would definitely put them in ground if I had a spot in full sun year round.
If they don’t produce well in pots, I’ll probably just get more figs instead.
I have some honey jar seedlings that are fruiting in their second year from seed in my air pruning bed at about 18" tall. So I think some varieties could work fairly well in pots, but even then seedlings might be your best route and thin to the highest performers in pots for you.
I don’t think lacking heat would be to much of an issue for you, because some jujubes ripen a lot earlier than late season apples. Your biggest concern, is that you want them to be in direct sun at least in the middle of the day (5 hours of direct sun onto the middle of the tree should be plenty). At 39th parallel nursery some of his jujube (coco) trees don’t get much of any sun after 2pm and are shaded by his larger jujubes next to them for the most of the morning and still are decked out in fruit.
In a paper which I can no longer fine openly available (but AI was able to locate the quote for me), Prof Yao says:
Based on previous research reports and observations in New Mexico, the average annual temperature of 10°C (50°F) is the borderline for jujube commercial production which corresponds to Espanola/Alcalde area in New Mexico
Looking at the 50F average annual temp line, it is about half-way up CT and just touches the coast in MA, near Boston. But, that is using the 30 year data. If we just look at the last 10 years, the line is near the Northern border of CT and covers a good chunk of MA’s interior.
So, from what I can see, you should be good to go with jujubes. Especially since I think Mamung is in a slightly colder area than you. Though maybe I’d skip varieties like Sherwood or Dong which ripen very late in the season.
I don’t think it is just jujubes. Nothing is happy in pots, at least for me. Even figs don’t produce much (generally anywhere from 0-5 fruit). Pots are where to put things for a few years while you get the spot ready. In fact, I think it might be better to plant in ground for a few years, rather than keep in a pot for the same time. It will be a bit more trouble to dig up, but as I noted in another thread, over half of the jujubes I transplanted this spring are carrying fruit.
Maybe if you used a big enough pot it would be fine. I don’t like carrying anything bigger than about 5 gal.
When I started growing jujubes I was very much of the opinion only complete full sun would work. But, I did plant some is less ideal spots (space is always an issue and it’s easy to plant a few extra jujube since they don’t need much care…). And eventually, many of the ones in shadier spots actually became productive (though not as productive as those in the sun). But, the quality didn’t suffer much. I think you’ll see a more noticeable hit in quality if they don’t get enough water. Jujubes can get 35 brix, so if you get one at 25 brix it is still great. But if it is shriveled due to lack of water that makes a big difference.
At my new property, I transplanted a bunch of seedlings to a less-ideal area of the yard (about 40-50 feet from a neighbor’s forest). They are spaced 2’ from each other and more than half of the older ones have fruit on them.
I think the best thing you can do in a marginal area is planting productive cultivars. Honey Jar and Sugar Cane are a good place to start, as would Black Sea. Skip larger cultivars (Li, Sihong, Dong, etc). If you really want (moderately) larger fruit, Xu Zhou and Bok Jo will be very productive, but they won’t be quite as crisp as the 3 listed above. Personally I find those two good to dry. Honey Jar will dry fine, but it is a waste of such crisp fruit and small dried fruit are a bit more annoying to eat.
After following this forum for many years, I have concluded that the Midwest has warmer spring and hotter summer. @tonyOmahaz5 is on zone 5 he grows jujubes and other same fruit that I grow including watermelons. His fruit ripen about 10-14 days ahead of mine. Same things with fruit from @clarkinks ’s orchard. That’s good news for people growing fruit including jujubes there.
@SummerGrower Bob has grown jujubes longer and many more varieties than mine. Please take his advice.
Over the years, I have grown many fruit in pots. They don’t do well and the fact that I have to drag those heavy pots in and out of my basement on a yearly basis gets to be too tiresome. Last year, I got rid of my potted persimmons and this year, most of my potted figs were gone. At this point, any fruit that can’t be planted in ground, I have little interest in growing them.
The sun requirement seems like the bigger issue than cold hardiness honestly. Same experience with quince here, perfectly hardy but never ripened properly unless it was against a south-facing wall getting full heat.
Would they grow 5a?
@tonyOmahaz5 is in zone 5 in Omaha, NE. Hope Tony will chime to help you.
I got about 25 Jujube trees going for the last 3 years at my new house. This will be the 4th summer here with 12 hours open sunshine from east to west with no shade. I was able to dig up a 10 year old Honey Jar from the old house with me and I grafted the rest. They will do fine in Omaha. We got hot and long summer from late April to the end of October and some Indian summer all the way to mid November for the jujube fruit to ripen. The cold snaps like -26 F will damage young Jujube branches or killed to the ground level but I buried my grafted Union 8 inches below ground for insurance for resprout back to the same variety anyhow. They are loaded this year due to the hot summer in the upper 90s since June. I grew most of Bob .v. @BobVance top tiers jujubes.
Tony
Over on the OurFigs forum it seems a lot of people grow them in pots with good yields. They typically grow them in 10-25 gallon pots. Potted trees don’t produce as much as in ground trees of course but they still get around 10 figs per gallon of potting mix from a mature tree. This is just from what I’ve read from forum members so it could be my experience won’t be like theirs.
My plan is to use 15 gallon fabric pots which aren’t too difficult for me to move with a dolly. If they don’t produce well then I’ll likely just give up because I can’t plant them in ground.
With jujube it is all about the rootstock and age of the tree when you get a cold winter. You can grow them in zone 5b but zone 5b can also kill them.
I am aware of Our Figs (and Figs for Fun before that). If you can move 10-20 gallon potted figs in and out of your garage easily, go for it. I thought figs were easy until my figs got mites.
Some fig varieties like Ronde de Bordeaux and Improved Celeste are not cold hardy enough in my garage (died to a soil line) and needed to be moved to the basement which is warmer than my garage. Everything is a learning experience. If you don’t mind experience some learning curves, you’ll do well.
