I had a great time at Dr Yao’s Jujube tasting workshop. I got to taste about 40 varieties of Jujube’s, as well as Jujube Cake, Jujube’s & whipped cream, candied jujube’s, & dried jujube’s; nobody went home hungry. There was also a lecture about growing jujubes & a comparison of varieties, as well as a tour of the plantings at Alcalde New Mexico.
For the tasting there were paper plates, filled with jujube’s, with the name. date, & source location on the plate. I took a picture of each plate so I now have a record of what each variety looks like.
Dr Yao doesn’t intend to put the presentation on the web, but I’ve asked for a copy which I can post. I have a printout but it doesn’t do justice to the pictures. Take aways:
Vitamin C is high in fresh jujubes, but largely disappears when sun dried.
Dr Yao says the Sandia is far & away the best tasting fresh jujube. She’s also high on the Dongzao. But neither is prolithic nor precocious. For large Jujube’s she likes the Alcalde #1, which is early, but not as prolithic as Li. All 3 tasted very good to me.
Pruning is important to get the best taste. Her latest plantings are on a 6 ft tree to tree spacing, about 12 ft between rows. She tops the trees each year so that they don’t shield each other. I also saw her very 1st planting, trees are only 2-3 ft apart; she says funding was tight then, she keeps the orchard as a tree repository. She uses an electric fence on her newest planting to keep away deer & racoons; at another location her problem is birds, thousands of birds. Pruning is easy as fruit bears each year on new wood,
The Li’s from Alcalde are about the same size & taste as mine. But the ones she grows 100-120 miles south are 30-40% larger, the largest Jujube’s I’ve ever seen. Taste was the same.
Lang is not self fruitful. She puts bags over branches & see’s what fruits.
I’ll post some more pictures shortly.
