Jujube fruit set if you don't have hot dry summers

[Bhawkins]

Sometimes I think Autumn is the best tasting one. Crisp. Similar to Winter Delight & Sherwood. Not as sweet as Honey Jar but still very sweet.Its only drawback is it took a long time to start bearing & then only modestly, like Sherwood

[mamuang]

Bob,
Could you please tell me how many years is " a long time". I am spoiled by how soon HJ, SC and Shanxi Li produce?

[Bhawkins]

a dozen in year 6, a modest crop year 7. Which is a year faster than Sherwood. GA866 has been a complete dud.

The Autumn Beauty was in a pretty good location, perhaps it needed more water as its at my office with drip irrigation under the grass; but it had plenty of sun. I planted another one last April, maybe it’ll do better.

Several Texas posters have commented how slow Sherwood is here. But in CA & FL, it seems to bear quickly.

I’ve had Contorted, Honey Jar, Sugar Cane, Li, Winter Delight, Redland 4 have at least a few fruit year 2.

[mamuang]

Bob,
Thanks for the info. 6 years are a long time.

I ordered a contorted and another HJ. Thanks to @tonyOmahaz5 and @BobVance.

In a couple of years, I should be able to graft other varieties on my trees.

[tonyOmahaz5]

You can’t go wrong with those two. Jujube give you sweet fruits and a low maintenance tree.

Tony

[mamuang]

Yesterday a friend gave me two jujubes. He got them from his brother who lives in CA. He did not know what variety they were.

They were large, larger than my Shanxi Li. Could it be a Li?

[mamuang]

They were not very sweet. Texture was kinda spongy.

[tonyOmahaz5]

Probably Li. My Li is sweet and crunchy right off the tree. The one you showed may have been harvested a while ago to get that sprongy.

Tony

[BobVance]

They were large, larger than my Shanxi Li. Could it be a Li?

Could be Li- that seems to be the most common commercial variety from CA. The one you have is much riper than the ones my wife got in Chinatown. Those were very large and spongy, but fairly inexpensive at $1-2 per pound. They also sold more expensive “sweet” jujubes at $4-5 per pound which weren’t spongy (firm, not crisp like mine) and sweeter, though more normal sized.

Here’s a pic of 2 from Chinatown next to a few from my tree. The largest of them was roughly 2 inches long and wide, almost apple sized.

[danzeb]

Cliff mentioned Chico, GA-866, Li, and Sherwood not fruiting in 15 years. I have all four of these and none of them have fruited any significant amount for me in 10 years.

A sucker came up from a small 12 inch high LI in a pot in July. The sucker flowered in August. I had two ripe fruit the beginning of November. I don’t know the rootstock. The fruit was small, had a slight apple taste and was not sour. The plant got about 7 hrs of sun a day initially and about 5 hrs by October.

[jujubemulberry]

seems like you hit the jackpot with that desirable rootstoc. Possibly grown from seed(of chance parentage) initially just intended for mass-production of rootstock by the nursery. And possible that the nursery may not be aware of your winning the ‘dna lottery’.
as it translates to your sole ownership of the jackpot if your rootstock was the original seedling and was then too young to produce suckers and fruits-- during its time in the nursery.

If the source has many juju varieties, and propagates their rootstoc from seeds obtained from randomly pollinated fruits in their farm(and not from dug-up suckers from a known spinosa), each rootstoc seedling may be a new cultivar .

[Chills]

I’m picking 1-2 a day. Seems colder temperatures are not a hindrance to ripening.

I’m getting to the point that the remaining fruit are well above my reach.

Sugar cane, HoneyJar and So all ripening fruit for me with lows in the low 40’s in the mornings. Highs in the low 60’s.

Scott

[mamuang]

Scott,

What is your order of preference re. taste of SC, HJ and So?

[Chills]

HoneyJar, then SugarCane and last So.

But the HoneyJars were ripening before the weather got cooler, which might have affected the fruit

Scott

[mamuang]

Thank you.

[BobVance]

I was picking until about November 1st. We had some nights down to about 30F without issue, but the one night which went down to 28F made a few fall. It was only a few, but there weren’t that many left by that point anyway.

Next year I hope I have more trees with crops- I’d like to have enough to store. I finished the last of mine within a day of picking the last and Chinatown seems to be done for the year around the same time.

The only ones I have left are a few Ant Admires, which were forgotten this summer in the fridge. Surprisingly, they didn’t go bad, but instead started to dry and are better now, than when fresh.

[jujubemulberry]

are better now, than when fresh

they are much better as dried dates. The late R. Meyer says they were pretty good fresh, but i guess it boils down to locale they were grown, as well as the weather period the fruits matured. And of course, depends on every individual’s taste.

[jujubemulberry]

Crisp. Similar to Winter Delight & Sherwood. Not as sweet as Honey Jar but still very sweet.

have to say have similar sentiments as Bob, regarding autumn b, @mamuang . And fruits are bigger than hj, so that is a plus if in an area where it might be productive. Btw, Bob, it seems to be more precocious here than winter d, considering that it fruited this year, or just more adapted to the desert compared to winter d, which seems to be more precocious in dfw area.

will post pictures tomorrow.

[jujubemulberry]

autumn b fruits, facilitated by the warm november we’re still having.

Big thanks to @Bhawkins

[Bhawkins]

Amazing it bore so fast. Grafting over may be the way to go with slow to bear varieties, like Autumn Beauty, Sherwood, & GA866

I plamted another Autumn Beauty last April, so I’ll have a second data point as to precocity