I’ve only gotten one crop of jujube (maybe 40-50 fruit), but they were good enough that I ordered 50 rootstocks and am grafting a bunch of different varieties. They have the highest brix of anything I’ve grown, with the fully brown ones in the 29-30 range (hardy kiwi are close, with nectarines 8+ points behind). The 22-24 brix 80% brown ones are even better, as they have a nice crunchy texture to go with the sweetness. They don’t have much acid, if any, but they have good flavor.
Of the random people I gave them to, the reactions have been pretty positive. One fruit grower I gave them to didn’t care for them (he loved the kiwis). Everyone else has either said they were good or very good and asked for more. Kids in particular were very happy with them.
In terms of size, I had a few like the tiny one in Fruitnut’s picture. But most were ~3X as big. Not huge, but larger than most cherries. Maybe they needed more water? This isn’t a plant that needs a water deficit to produce sweet fruit.
I saw a video of Dr Yao saying something like when Americans traditional fruit crops fail they will become very interested in Jujube.
I sounded negative about the jujube but I really do want all 800 cultivars in the US so we can start planting.
I want this to be a commercial crop.
In the little Honey Jars defense It might be a good thing to remember Plum Pox Virus taking out 1000’s of acres of trees.
As we try to stop it spreading across the US.
My jujube don’t lack for sweetness. But even Honey Jar and Sugar Cane lacked flavor and there’s nothing about the texture that appeals to me. I’ve had local ones bigger and some I’d even call fair for eating. Did have one very late Shanxi Li that I’d call good. That was my total crop of that variety in 3 yrs due to freeze damage in spring.
David:
There has to be some reason these things haven’t taken off in what 60 to 80??? yrs they’ve been in USA.
I had a plum pox virus scare right in my greenhouse. Turned up negative.
I think the shame is that more folks can’t grow the good fruits. My best jujube can’t hold a candle to nectarine, pluots, or anything else I grow, with one exception, goji berries. Those were spit out bad. The biggest difference is flavor, no comparison IMO. Others may have different tastes or maybe I haven’t given jujube enough chance. Have eaten the local ones 5-6 yrs.
I found that my Li and Sugarcane are a little more juicier in texture when I harvested them in early morning with some dew on them. I try to avoid harvesting them in the afternoon because the fruits tend to dry out a bit due to the afternoon sun. I do like them because of no disease issue and low care trees.
This is not just jujube fruit itself, but a culture thing.
Jujube is consumed in East Asia mainly as a dried preserved fruit. At a time when there was no refrigerator, no long-haul freight trucks, what did folks eat during the cold winter? So in northern China, Korean, even part of Japan, jujube can grow in the poor soil in the wild. The trees are not very demanding and do well on hill side, even with some salt content.
Dried jujube and persimmon are the main dried fruits. Other major fruits, like apple, pear, peach, etc., can’t be easily dry preserved. The dried fruits are very rich in nutrients, same as dried figs.
nectarines and peaches are good, but don’t have this ‘signature-freshness-in-one’s-mouth’ lingering after one has eaten jujubes, which i find unique to juju’s. And juju’s are at least as nutritious as most drupes and pomes.
For lazy fruit farmers like myself, nectarines and peaches are too short-lived(at least here in the mojave desert), living not much longer than a dog, demanding relatively plenty irrigation, and often threatened with all sorts of maladies during their short lives.
a jujube tree is destined to be a living heirloom, one that gives so much more than it takes, and will continue to do so for many generations-- in human terms.
you are probably right fruitnut, it is difficult to grow good nectarines here in vegas, which is why the homegrown ones have tasted aren’t stellar, but conversely, it is likely you probably haven’t tasted a really good jujube, which might bear less palatable fruits in certain regions of usa. Even here, the first batch of jujubes are not as good as the second or third batches(when trees have received plenty of summer warmth). Moreover, most jujubes will try to bear on their first few years, and fruits from these prepubertal trees don’t usually represent those of established trees.
but then again, gastronomy is not an exact science, and is more of art and subjective opinions. I can never really ‘dig’ those million-dollar picasso’s, whereas some folks would gladly part with their millions for his artwork.
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Hey man you’re welcome to your opinion. And tastes do vary. But I’ve moved 1200 miles twice just to find the best situation to grow and sample the world’s best fruits. Thousands of dollars and 40 yrs later tells me jujubes aren’t the king of fruits. In fact they are about 20 species behind nectarines.
that makes the two of us, fruitnut! Was growing rambutan, sugar apples, several cultivars of bananas, avocados, mangoes, lanzones, santol, sapodillas, etc in the isles across the pacific, just a couple of decades ago, and i agree, jujubes are not exactly king of fruits. While i really enjoy the taste of jujubes, am more inclined to extol them for their other virtues and logistics.
Jujube certainly have there place. Here they grow virtually wild with no care whatever and produce every yr drought or wildfire. One grove of wild trees produced a good yield of full size fruits the yr we got 5 inches rainfall. That same yr a wildfire surrounded the trees and burnt 400,000 acres. This was near Fort Davis, TX in 2011.
where i am at, grafted jujus cost ~40$ each, if bought from local nursery or ordered online, and is often sold out. Texas probably has more wild jujube trees than any other state, and the largest jujube tree in usa is actually there(fort worth if i remember it right), and may well be the oldest juju tree. Also, this fruit has this queer distinction with regards to acceptance, as people either like it so much, or find it outright unappealing. It is understandable as jujube fruits from the same tree could taste differently depending on the month they were borne(jujus have long fruiting seasons, bearing mature fruits in succession beginning july to november, unlike drupes and pomes which bear fruit in wholesale fashion, then wait until next spring). Also, since it sort of tastes like an apple, but is smaller than an apple and more dry and less colorful, it is immensely disadvantaged from the get-go. Speaking for myself, it is also an acquired taste. When i tried it the first time, i got to admit to you i felt like gagging, and threw the half-eaten juju away… But there was this tart after-taste in my mouth which lingered for several minutes–which literally tempted me to try another one, and then another one, and then another one! The next summer i got to try a better variety and was hooked and couldn’t stop researching on this beguiling fruit.
and yes, i admit it sounds crazy, but if i were asked to choose between a perfectly-grown honey-crisp apple(or any other specialty apple for that matter), and a perfectly grown sihong jujube, i will take the sihong juju hands-down. It is dense, and dry, and ugly, so even if i don’t think of it as leonardo or da vinci among fruits, i regard it as my picasso
All fruits are good. There is no comparison, just personal preferences. Say, some like mulberry and some just hates the taste… Make no difference as far as the tree is concerned.
My 2nd year jujubies are starting to set fruit but then they are turning yellow and dropping like small plums do, is this normal? About 95% of the flowers fall but a few grow into this but then turn yellow and fall.
i have about 20 varieties of juju and all of them do this, usually on their first set of flowers.
Only contorted and honeyjar seem to be able to nurse many of their fruits to maturity. Silverhill, li, and norris also try to nurse many of their fruits, but not as reliable as honeyjar and so.
am in las vegas, nv.
i see you live in md.
unfortunately i don’t have redlands.
honeyjar is hands-down the most ‘steadfast’ about its fruits to maturity, on top of its relatively good taste. I bought 4 HJ’s in spring 2013, and they all performed like they were ‘adult trees’. In the pic in the link below, the HJ is hardly seen as that minuscule ‘tuft’ peering out from the bermuda grass to the left of the larger silverhill, and all its fruits reached full-ripeness. Easily the tiniest temperate fruiting tree, bearing viable fruits at 4" tall! http://forum.vpaaz.org/photo/tigertooth-jujube-and-honey-jar?context=album&albumId=2008067%3AAlbum%3A398903
both of them fruited on the same year they were planted.
i have found some online logs by folks raising HJ’s in philly, new mexico, and tx, and they all have the same results re: fruit set.
another popular variety is sugarcane and it also bears reliably, but is subject to a couple of years’ wait to acclimatize before picking up some speed-- at least in my locale. HJ accelerates from 0-60 in just two months planted as bare-root, regardless of size… SC is not as good as HJ in taste when eaten fresh, but if you have a sweet tooth, it is pretty good when shriveled into dates. Like apple-flavored molasses. http://forum.vpaaz.org/photo/sugarcane-juju?context=user
btw, noticed just now that you already have HJ. Makes me think the few hours of sunlight yours get is the limiting factor.
juju’s generally need >6 hrs to fruit. I have planted some adjacent to a big tree, and they survived with ~4 hrs of sunlight, but growth was spindly and didn’t fruit at all.
i got mine from rollingriver two years ago
best eaten as dried jujube dates, as the taste and texture are similar to silverhill.
probably also a day-bloomer.
bears some weird-looking fruits: http://forum.vpaaz.org/photo/norris-1-jujube?context=user
