Jujube 2021

[BobVance]

@dpps

Do I go ahead and order the bare root honey jar from four winds? I have never heard of them before, and do not know their quality. Also, I do not think I want to order the gallon size Confetti from OGW because the consensus in this thread is that it is worth it to get the bare root trees. But, should I wait for OGW to update their spring listings and hope they have a bare root honey jar? Or one of the other varieties they recommended in their email?

I’d say get a bare root Honey Jar from 4WG (and maybe a Sugar Cane or Shanxi Li if you want larger less-crisp fruit). Their note on shipping is encouraging (bold added):

Shipping is calculated by box size. We can fit up to 8 bare-root fruit trees in a box. Multi-budded fruit trees and Jujube trees will count as 2 due to branching. Optimize your shipping by ordering multiple trees.

@dpps

Ant Admire, Empress Gee, and Confetti jujubes. These produce large fruits that are very sweet, crisp and juicy.

I have an Ant Admire graft and it produced several fruit last year. They weren’t very good (not crisp or crunchy). And this year it didn’t produce at all. Maybe it is good somewhere (or ants wouldn’t admire it), but it doesn’t seem great in my climate. At least not yet.

An example of something which wasn’t good initially, but has finally showed signs of hope is Sihong. I’ve had 2 Sihong trees for 4 years now and have only had a couple fruit from one tree last year. It wasn’t very good (texture or brix), but I still put a Sihong graft on a tree at the rental where everything (even the lawn) has fast growth. That graft produced in the same year and the fruit has finally started to ripen (a bit late, given that our normal first frost date is a few days from now). Here’s the first few fruit from that graft. Much better texture- a lighter crispy texture, similar to Sugar Cane, though not quite as good. But larger and with good flavor.

I picked it on the way to a softball game and ate it before I could get a brix reading. But it was pretty encouraging.

The rain from Monday caused cracking in some fruit. Sugar Cane and Honey Jar don’t seem too badly affected, but Xu Zhou was hit hard.

A new graft of Xu Zhou, where the fruit wasn’t quite as ripe got away a lot better.

Beyond impacting fruit quality, the cracking makes the fruit a bit tricky to pick.

I saw one fruit with 3 yellow jackets on it. I came back after dark, expecting them to be gone, but it seems like they decided to camp out on the spot and were still there. The other day I picked a Sugar Cane that was burrowed into (on the side away from me). When I felt a buzzing tickling my finger I tossed the fruit. I’m shocked that I didn’t get stung. Maybe it was too drunk on sugar to react quickly enough.

Other jujubes…

I picked the last of the Massandra. Very good, though the late season ones were a bit small. But, 30 brix and crisp is a pretty good combination.

Tae Sang Wang has been productive, large, and has decent (not HJ/SC levels, but not bad) light texture.

Churchpoint is showing good precocity. I have at least 4 grafts of it which are carrying fruit. None of which are at the site where everything grows fast, as there were no Churchpoint grafts there. No idea if it will ripen before the frost, but it’s a good sign going forward. The other jujube which I got with it, Yazoo Li had fruit from only one graft (1 in 10 vs 4 in 8 for Churchpoint).

[JustPeachy]

Gurney’s has bareroot Honey Jar available for preorder too.

[castanea]

That might not be Sihong.
Photos below are from mine.
I tend to trust the identity of many of my trees because I bought many of them, like Sihong, directly from Roger Meyer in the early-mid 90s. The farther you get from the original trees, in time and in distribution channels, the more chances for mis-identification.

[Seattlefigs]

sihong looks so good dry! it mid to late ripening? how is flavor when fresh eating?

[castanea]

For me, Sihong was solid med-season. It is sweet, with a good and interesting texture and flavor. It’s a little different than most other good jujubes. It needs to be picked when almost completely brown, but when picked at its peak, it is very good. And it is definitely one of the best jujubes dried.

[k8tpayaso]

I agree with @castenea. SiHong was really hard for me to find when I started with jujubes and I didn’t know how it would do in my area. I wouldn’t describe it as crisp but it isn’t dry and it’s very consistently good. Few jujubes dry well naturally in my hot humid climate but this one does….consistently. It is really good dried and I’m not a big lover of dried jujubes (I think because a lot of my jujubes go mushy when over ripe) but this one is good. It ripens a lot sooner for me than Redlands.

And it usually produces a second crop for me here.

[Seattlefigs]

i think i like more crisp texture. so i will stick with the others. i have coco today i checked it was completely brown but it small so im not sure if i can get larger jujubes to ripen to that brown stage.

[BobVance]

@castanea

That might not be Sihong.

You could be right- they were far too fruitful to be like the parent trees, so I may have messed up the wood. The wood that I used (as far as I know) came from 2 Sihongs which came from Englands.

The ones in your pictures are more elongated and slightly more squared off than mine. These were the first two fruit to ripen, so hopefully I’ll be able to get some more next Tuesday (I drive by the site on my way to a softball playoff game). Given how large mine are, that along will limit what they can be, so I’ll pay more attention and see if they match any of the others. I think Tae Sang Wang, Redlands, and Yazoo Li are the only other large ones which I grafted this spring.

Frost may hold off another few days, but the 10 day forecast has 5 days in a row of 37F starting on 11/3, so I would bet that at least one of those days will got a bit colder. I don’t remember the exact point jujubes drop their leaves and fruit, but I think it was pretty close to freezing.

Just like last year Tigertooth has started to ripen at the very end of the season. The fruit quality seems a bit better this year. Last year it was tough and bland. While not good, it is at least pleasant to eat now. The texture reminds me of a couple of the rootstocks, but the fruit size is at least twice as big. But, this is enough for me to upgrade Tigertooth from a D to a C- in quality. If the rest of the fruit is like this, it could get to a full C…

A couple late season fruit off my oldest tree (10 years old). The So is quite juicy and the Bok Jo is really building up the sugars and has OK texture.

@JustPeachy

Gurney’s has bareroot Honey Jar available for preorder too.

Just from the description on the sites, I’d think the 4W one would be larger. But the Gurney’s one is about 2/3 the price (less, if you can find some coupons), so it depends on what you want to optimize for. I’ve ordered other stuff from Gurney’s and while it isn’t top-notch, it isn’t bad. But, whatever you do, don’t go for their “Supersweet” jujube. It’s just GA866 (in the fineprint below the description), a variety which probably won’t produce in our area.

[mamuang]

Bob,
Thanks for all the detailed info with nice pics. My jujube trees have dropped most of their leaves these past few days. It is nice to see your trees are still producing.

[dpps]

I found a 50% off code for gurneys (code 0519717, it’s good through tomorrow!), which was too good of a price to pass up, so I pre-ordered the honey jar from gurneys! With the discount, I also ordered some rhubarb roots for the spring, and even with shipping the total was only $42. So, I’m pretty happy right now thinking of new plants and good value!

The gurneys website says their bare roots are between 2 and 4 feet high. Fingers crossed I get a 4’ tree!

Now that I’ve pulled the trigger and ordered a honey jar, can I ask for some advice about pruning/maintenance? I’ve read online that jujubes don’t really require pruning, but I’m hoping to keep mine pedestrian height. Do I top it off at knee height and prune open center like a peach? Or do I choose scaffolds and prune modified Central leader like an apple?

Thank you so so much for all the knowledge and pictures you share! It really is so helpful for novices like me!

[k8tpayaso]

Jujubes have a different structure than most other trees. I prune mine very little because I like their wandering shape. However Honey Jar is more of a slight build tree than most jujubes and doesn’t usually spread out as much.

Here’s an article on them that explains their structure and how to prune.

Jujube Training and Pruning Basics.pdf (5.3 MB)

[scottfsmith]

I just checked my Xu Zhou, I was surprised that only a few had cracked in the recent deluge. They are also tasting a notch better now, as good as any jujube I have had besides HJ. They are all pretty dark brown, and the last light coloring I saw was a couple weeks ago. Maybe the cooler weather is helping their flavor improve.

I was going to remove it this winter but I might keep a stub to let it grow back. My HJ is on the same root but HJ really small so I need to let it take over.

[dpps]

Thank you for the pruning resource link! I would have done something totally wrong if I hadn’t seen that, and then I would have been super frustrated wondering why my tree wasn’t growing!

[BobVance]

@scottfsmith

Maybe the cooler weather is helping their flavor improve.

Agreed, the cool weather seems to help- I think most of my jujubes have been pretty good over the last few weeks. We’re a few days past where we could expect our first frost. Thursday and Saturday are forecast to get down to 32 for me, but only 36-37 at most of the rentals, with next week back to the mid-40’s. So, I could be getting a trickle of jujubes and figs for a little while.

Another site has some Xu Zhou which are still green, even though I picked the last of the Honey Jar and So at that location today.

@castanea

That might not be Sihong.
Photos below are from mine.

I picked some more (presumed) Sihong today. They look quite a bit like your pic to me.

As noted above, I was able to get a brix reading this time. The fruit was pretty good (hard to be too bad at 30 brix…). But, while firm, it wasn’t the crispest fruit, nor did it have too much juice. Enough for me to get a brix reading, but I had to work a bit harder than with Honey Jar or apples.

I brought some of the So and figs to the softball game and the jujubes were very popular this time. I had brought some (also So, from a tree at my yard) to a previous game and it got a more muted response (that time, the figs were more in demand).

I went to a few other locations and there were more Sugar Cane (about a quart) and a few Li at one:

Another location is just about done. I got 4 jujubes total (I ate the Honey Jar too quickly) and no figs (very large original Reservoir fig started and finished before the younger one at a different location).

3 very similar brix readings, with So having the best texture (though smallest). The other 2 were pretty similar.

I’m also growing some jujube seedlings. Highest germination rate from current year Honey Jar, with 2nd highest from last year’s HJ seeds. Bok Jo went 1/3 in both pots, so at least there is is something in each. I’m thinking about trying to transplant the excess HJ, but I suspect they won’t take it well.

[castanea]

@BobVance

I picked some more (presumed) Sihong today. They look quite a bit like your pic to me

Yes, they look much more like Sihong.

[jujubemulberry]

love it! and awesome report, as always @BobVance

[jujubemulberry]

bundle of joy-- those baby jujus are

[BobVance]

They are growing pretty well:

I have them on a tray that I move back and forth between SE and SW windows each day. I’ve also placed the tray at a tilt (maybe 30 degrees) toward the window, so that it hits them more directly.

The rooted cuttings aren’t as happy. They are the only 2 of the 10 starts that developed roots. But they haven’t grown at all (started in early August).

The last time I got any significant level of jujubes was Nov 11th, at a rental. Most of these are So, with a few figs thrown in:

About a week later, I went around picking the last straglers from my yard, as the leaves have started to drop.

Almost everything ripened, except for a few Xu Zhou which only “mostly ripened”. The wrikled ball in the bottom left is a Honey Jar I missed earlier.

At the end of the season, I think I ended up with more fruit than I thought I would. I think it wasn’t a great year for jujubes, but having a lot of trees getting 1 year older more than compensated in terms of total production. In particular, a 2017 Sugar Cane from a rental and the 2011 So from my yard both produced at least 10lbs of fruit, though the quality was inconsistent from both trees, particularly the early fruit.

[BobVance]

I finished the last of the stored jujubes yesterday. They were Sugar Canes that were picked on 10/25 and stored in a gallon zip lock bag in the fridge for ~1.5 months. They were still OK, but significantly worse than when freshly picked. The off-flavor that Sugar Cane had this year was much worse after storage. They also lost a lot of the crispness, though they still had some firmness left.

This pic is from a couple weeks ago, but still represents the state of the jujubes yesterday. They didn’t seem to change that much from 0.5 to 1.5 months.

Anyone have a good way to maintain jujubes at closer to “fresh-picked” status? I would have expected that they would store better (similar to apples), given how they don’t easily spoil and how firm/crunchy they can be when picked.