have to add they were the good producers even as youngsters(recent grafts/recent planting as tiny bare-root).
and more importantly, relative to size of the plant/tree. The sc bare-root’s received were big, but the density of fruiting was very thick. Hj and norris were outstanding producers as 7" scrawny twigs, btw. . [quote=“BobVance, post:375, topic:515”]
I’m not even sure I’ll be able to tell when they are ripe
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they are good at the tan-tipped stage, but better when fully-tan, or dried into dates.
Normally, with So, I like them best when they are about 80% brown, 20% yellow. But the Norris just looks strange- unlike immature So, they already have other colors, even when small. The ones you picture are much more uniform, while the ones I have are shaped like a pepper.
My wife got some jujubes in Chinatown yesterday. The large ones on the left look like Li to me. They are OK, but a bit dry and not too sweet. I had trouble getting enough juice to measure, but eventually found one of the riper ones had 17 brix.
While the Li (?) were $1/lb, the ones on the right were labeled as sweet jujube and were $5/lb. She got 3 bags (almost 5 lbs each) of the cheap ones and one of the pricey ones, saying she figured I’d like it. One of the least ripe registered at 20 brix and one of the riper ones maxed out my refractometer (32+). From the shape and the high sugar, I’m guessing GA866, but am not at all sure of that. They are good eating- more crunch and juice than the Li(?), though I don’t think they are as juicy/crunchy as the ones I grow.
Is this the first year that they are fruiting? I think my first year (which only had a handful of fruit) were smaller too. So are very tasty for me and while not all of them are very large, they are plenty big enough to be enjoyable. I’ll go out and measure a few tomorrow to update this.
Here is a pic of my So from a few days ago, where you can see a mix of sizes.
If size is the most important characteristic, then yes, Li would be good to plant. I’m not as sold on them for fresh eating, though all of the Li I’ve had have been shipped across country (3 different sources). I planted a Li this spring to test it out myself. It has grown the fastest of all my jujube- it is already a couple feet taller than my 5 year old So.
I don’t think that is true. As long as you can give it good sun exposure, I think you can grow them in the East. I’m NE of NYC and can still get a good crop (see above). In fact, the ones I’ve had from my own yard have been better than those grown in the arid West, in that my climate allows the tree to not need to steal moisture from the jujubes, resulting in crisp, crunchy, moist (I wouldn’t go as far as juicy…) delicious fruit.
Edit:
The largest Li from Chinatown is 3.8 x 4.0 cm wide and 5 cm tall
The largest So on my tree (I didn’t check them all…) is 2.5 x 2.5 cm wide and 2.7 cm tall
Ping pong balls have diameters of 3.8 or 4.0 cm, depending on how old the ball is (size increased in 2000- I have a table and prefer the bigger ones). Even the larger So a bit smaller than a ping pong ball by just over a cm.
norris and a few more in the rt series are some of the most variable in fruit configurations. [quote=“BobVance, post:384, topic:515”]
brix and one of the riper ones maxed out my refractometer (32+). From the shape and the high sugar, I’m guessing GA866, but am not at all sure of that. They are good eating- more crunch and juice than the Li(?), though I don’t think they are as juicy/crunchy as the ones I grow.
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those unidentified jujus you have may be ga-866, but could also be some other variety. Some in the rt series could look like it. Makes me think it may not be 866 due to the poor production, even in ca and nv. Possibly r1t4 in my assessment and by your description.
btw, we bought one of those cheap-o refractometers too, and ga-866 is not by its lonesome in breaking the 32 barrier. All 30+ varieties of jujus we tested are high 20’s or >30 anyway, so i guess it is a matter of liking the flavor, and not so much into the sugar level. Some of the sour wild rootstoc we tested approached 30’s too.[quote=“BobVance, post:384, topic:515”]
a pic of my So from a few days ago, where you can see a mix of sizes.
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while we do get contorteds in round configurations, most of our so’s are more like thompson seedless grapes in shape. Even though our trees are as productive as yours, basing on your pics, your weather and soil conditions might be more conducive to contorteds, producing bigger and roundish ones, and perhaps better tasting ones.
Thanks for the replies. This is the second year, although I only had 2 last year. I will give it another year to see if the size improves, especially since I can’t find any LI right now online. These are about a third the size of grapes. I am wondering if the rootstock somehow took over.
That sounds like rootstock, I had that on one of my jujubes. They are particularly prone to sprout below graft or from roots so its very easy to have that happen.
I decided to crack open the Honey Jar seed that was crossed by the wild Jujube and the seeds looked viable. I plan to grow them out and see if I can come up with another variety.
I’ve since found larger ones, both from my tree (2.5 x 2.7 x 3.0) and Chinatown Li’s (4.7 x 4.7 x 5.0). Here’s a pic with 2 average sized and one small So vs 2 large (though not the largest) Li:
In another thread, I mentioned that So has ripened around 9/9 for me in the past. I checked my notes again and both years were 9/19, not 9/9. This year, I have a bigger crop, so I’ve been able to snack on 1-4 per day for the last week. The large majority are yet to ripen though.
The two ripe ones at the top are in the above pic.
This year, Honey Jar has been a level above the So for fresh eating. So is at least 1, maybe 2 levels above the ZHD. It was very dense and dry, with only mild sweetness. Maybe next time I’ll see if I can get it to dry.
One other note- my So weren’t as good this year as last. Then, we had a day of rain last week. The fruit I picked in the day or two after the rain were much crisper and juicier- very tasty. I think I need to irrigate when they get close to ripe if we go a while without rain.
Thanks for the report on ZHD. I just looked at mine and one was getting ripe (not quite half brown) and I tried it. It was no Honey Jar but I did eat the whole thing. One other new jujube had a fruit on it and it was like sawdust (Huping?), it was a spitter.
Here is a picture of my old stand with too little light. I am just using it to park varieties on now. You can see a few green ZHD if you look closely.
And what is the spacing? Hard to say from this angle, but it looks like a zig-zag row was used to get tighter spacing.
It was definitely edible and didn’t taste bad- just pretty dry. I guess that most of the varieties which have fruited for me have been pretty good, given that I haven’t run into any spitters yet- or I don’t have a problem with eating sweet sawdust…
your trees look healthy, but seem to be starved of sunlight in your region, considering your long winters and early autumns
btw, although many of our trees are spaced quite tightly too, it is probably crucial that we have longer summers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6Bq6bLwU8E
Those trees are in a tight zig-zag row, its something like 2’ from trunk to trunk in a zig-zag. A few years after doing these zig-zags I concluded they were a bad idea unless they were really far apart - I have some zig-zags with 5’ between trunks and thats about the minimum you want to do this way. The furthest to the right tree is Honey Jar, I cleared out several trees from around it but it is still not fruiting and I think light is the main problem. This picture I shot around 5PM and you can see how there is little sun - from 2PM or so it is shaded.
@mamuang, these trees were planted in 2004 or so. Most of them have been topworked.
There are parts of my So which get shade from 2 or 3pm on at this time of year, yet still have a partial load of fruit. I think the key may be that they get much more sun during the summer when the fruit is setting. It is a low roof (1 story addition) which shades them in the afternoon, so the sun is high enough in June/July to hit until 5pm or a bit later.
Where you are standing for the pic, or to your right a bit must have some pretty big trees- it looks like several trunks angle away.
Longer summers probably don’t hurt, but I bet that a steady stream of days without many clouds and a stronger sun (lower latitude by a bit) makes a bigger difference. It isn’t like Scott has a ton of jujubes that don’t ripen- they don’t set in the first place.
I’ve been planting mine in rows of pretty close distances too, about 5’. But, I’ve been picking the sunniest spots I can find, most close to full sun, give or take an hour at the beginning/end.
we get 300+ days of sunny weather/yr, and many of those during summer. No doubt it helps with photosynthesis, considering that some of our trees are just 3’ apart.
Scott,
My honey Jar, a tiny stick from Burnt Ridge, planted in May this year had a few fruit. I picked all off but one. This tree gets sun from 9 am -5 pm.
I am amazed your tree has not produced in all these years. It is hard for me to believe sun light is that crucial to jujube’s fruit production!!!
