Jujube Rankings 2017 Dallas

General Fruit Growing
#1

Autumn Beauty: I previously thought this was a Winter Delight, but I’m fairly convinced it’s in fact an Autumn Beauty. Large fruit, precocious, great taste. My favorite. I’ve purchased another Autumn Beauty from One Green World, who imported this variety (as well as a Winter Delight), & should be able to confirm identities this year.

Sugarcane: Medium sized fruit, great taste. I’ve seen a couple reports of it being a shy bearer but it’s been good here.

Shihong, great taste here in Dallas, though some other posters don’t like its texture. Medium size fruit, very productive.

Honey Jar: Great taste, small fruit, very productive, precocious.

Chico: Tastes different than all other jujubes; my wife & her Korean friends love it, but I can only eat a couple; a rather winey flavor that seems a little cloying if that makes any sense. Medium to large size fruit, very precocious, very productive. If planting only 1 variety I wouldn’t choose this, but definitely in the top 4-5. Burnt Ridge sold me a good sized tree.

Li: Large, usually very good taste. Taste was of varied quality first 3-4 years but has been consistently good last 3-4 years. Very productive, fairly precocious.

Contorted So: small-medium size, most years tastes great but the tree occasionally produces mediocre fruit.

Shanxi Li: Slightly larger than Li, tastes good but I prefer the taste of Li. I’ve never seen the extra-large fruits some nurseries talk about.

Sherwood: Great taste, medium size, but slow to bear, like 5-6+ years & I haven’t seen a heavy crop yet. I’ve seen great reports from CA & Fla.

GA866: rivals pears for time to bear, longer than Sherwood. I’ve tasted a few; very very sweet, but to me not much flavor; so I wouldn’t recommend this one. Medium size fruit. I did see one good report from S Texas, took them 8 years to get a productive tree.

Lang: Don’t know why anyone would grow this; very productive but usually tasteless. Large fruit.

Tigertooth: The most productive tree for me, but usually tastes like cardboard. Apparently does well in Fla. Medium size fruit.

Xu Zhou: no fruit after 6 years, & I’ve moved from that house; I’ll try another one this year.

Growing but no results yet: CoCo, Blacksea, Redlands 4, Winter Delight and Massandra.

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#2

Good info. I have a few of those growing just east of you and I have several rootstocks and a Lang that I am going to graft to this year with some of the others. The Autumn Beauty sounds really good…

Katy

#3

Thanks for the critique of jujube cultivars…One cultivar that I have been pleasantly surprised by is ‘Ant Admirer’…It is a thornless cultivar (not that I have ever considered thorns being a problem with jujubes)…but it does have a very flavorful fruit that is the size and shape of Tigertooth…at least it is in N. Florida.

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#4

How’s the growth rate on your jujube trees? I’m over in Fate(east of Dallas). I planted Honey Jar and Sugarcane in early fall. I’m curious what to expect this first year in ground.

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#5

Guess I’ll have to try that one!

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#6

If your trees came from Dave Wilson or LE Cook or Trees of Antiquity—or any other supplier with lots of Roots and a thick trunk— and if you have mulch 4-5 ft in diameter…they’ll be 5-8 ft next fall.

I also have planted some skinny 1 ft trees; after a year they’re skinny 3 ft trees; then they take off the next year. But after just 1 year, they’re still not as big as the ones from the nurseries mentioned above.

Your trees should do great in Fate, jujube’s like this area

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#7

Katy, your in jujube country, your trees should do great

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#8

Excited about trying the grafting and getting more cultivars. I’m ready for spring… especially facing the next few days!! I know we need it but I’d rather skip. :flushed:

#9

that makes the two of us! Hope to be sharing data soon.

If this might be some assurance, ogw emailed me last month about their recent change in management(i mentioned receiving black sea instead of massandra earlier this year), so hopefully their new management will do it right.

not sure if our findings are worth any, but wouldn’t hurt to share that our xu zhou grafts on li(as interstems) were precocious. Bearing on same year of grafting.

#10

that is nice to know.

Ant A. is quite early here, and fruits borne at the height of our summers are generally not good.
sihong and hj seem to be the heat-resistant ones.

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#11

livinginawe, where did you get the Ant Admire? There was a previous thread trying to decide which of 3 trees was a true Ant Admire, I want to get the good one!

#12

I purchased scions from Roger Meyer in 2011. I don’t believe I much cared for the few fruit born in previous years because I grafted a Sugar Cane to a couple branches…but this year it produced a decent size crop that was quite good. If you would like scions I would be happy to send some.

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#13

This was the first crop that I was impressed with…We had an overcast and rainy summer…I wonder if that factored into it.

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#14

It’s not quite that bad…but I agree, it is the least flavorful cultivar (my scions were ‘Silverhill’ from Roger Meyer, so perhaps ‘Tigertooth’ is different). But it grows like a weed and produces a heavy load of flowers (pollinator) all summer. I have tasted some jujubes at a local farmers market here in N.Florida that looked like my ‘Silverhill’ and tasted worse than cardboard…I was so mad at this vendor, and am determined to set up a booth at the farmer’s market to give people a better impression of this great fruit.

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#15

it is for this reason that now have a more open-minded stance towards people’s preferences, as what i think is no bueno, well, it is not just self-centered and subjective, but also contingent to the growing conditions the fruits have been grown in.

most definitely! Our ant admire’s taste much better when ripened in sept to nov, when we no longer have >110F’s !

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