I’ve been trying to sort through the jujube posts to get a consensus on the favorites, particularly the “Jujubes - Our new adventure” thread with 2.3k replies. it is a bit of a heavy lift going through all the comments so I thought I would start a new post asking for recommendations. I’m in zone 7b in Maryland and have plenty of good locations with full sun.
based on what I’ve sorted through so far my primary picks are:
honey jar
sugarcane
Li
So/contorted
also considering:
Autumn beauty
black sea
Massandra
looking for the best fresh eating characteristics.
am I way off here? any other jujube cultivars I should be considering?
You can grow anything in 7b.
As for cultivars, it really depends on what you like.
Honey Jar, Sugarcane, Li and So would never be on my top 10 list.
Below is my latest attempt at a top 10 list, in no particular order:
Maya
Dae Sol Jo
Sweet Tart
Shanxi Li
Shandong Pear
Fucuimi
Autumn Beauty
Orange Beauty
Black Sea
Chico
I agree with @castenea regarding cultivars. I haven’t tasted all that are on his list but the ones I have tasted are excellent. Everyone seems to like Honey Jar and Sugar Cane. Li can be really good but it isn’t really always consistent from fruit to fruit on the same tree in the same year. When I first started growing I wanted some large fruit cultivars and didn’t think I would want to bother with the smaller fruits. I have grown to like the smaller fruits better than I do most of the larger ones.
Favorites:
Black Sea
Massandra
Dae Sol Jo
Orange Beauty
Chico
So (but only the one sold by Just Fruits and Exotics)
I do really like Honey Jar and Sugar Cane but I think some of the others I listed are just as good or better. Chico may not be for everyone. I have had some that are not as good but when they are good they are GOOD. I’ve gotten a lot of taste fluctuation with them in different weather conditions. Orange Beauty has taken a long time to fruit for me but is worth waiting on.
Best advice is to get a couple or so and then graft other varieties that you want onto those trees.
To me your list looks good. In Maryland it is much harder to get jujubes to fruit, for example I had a Chico for 15 years which never gave me a single fruit. In general make sure to pick ones where eastern growers had success getting fruit, that is the most important consideration.
For me, Honey Jar, Sugar Cane, and Xu Zhou have been the best at fruiting. Honey Jar tastes the best of those but is small. I am trying Autumn Beauty and Black Sea but no fruit so far (well, one or two on Black Sea this year). Five years on the Autumn Beauty and six years on the Black Sea. I am hoping Bok Jo will fruit reliably, I grafted it in a good spot this year and it already has some fruit on it.
I seconded Scott. For east coast growers, everyone who posted here is happy with Honey Jar, including me. This year, with so much rain we have had, HJ continues to produce sweet and crunchy fruit, an impressive performance.
My trees are relatively young, only 6th leaf. I like Honey Jar, Sugar Cane, Massandra and Black sea.
Shanxi Li has not lived up to my expectation. I hope it will get better.
@BobVance grows many jujube varieties. He is also in the east coast, CT.
Honey Jar is in its own class. Until this year, I though that Sugar Cane might be with it, but several SC have all had inconsistent fruit quality this year. So while SC’s best fruit may be slightly better than HJ’s best (SC is a lighter crisp, while HJ is a denser texture, so it is subjective), you are more likely to get great HJ than great SC. HJ is also a bit more productive than SC. SC has slightly larger fruit.
While I grow a lot of kinds, I don’t have a couple from @castanea list- Sweet Tart and Shandong Pear. If you (or anyone else on here who happens to have them) are willing, I’d be happy to do a scion-swap this winter.
I agree with Scott about Chico being un-productive here. I think I’ve had 2-3 fruit from it (one of which is growing now) in 4-5 years from 2 trees. I guess that beats none in 15 years, but not by much.
Autumn Beauty’s productivity is mixed for me. I have four trees (4, 4, 4, and 3 years) and a massive 4 year old graft. No fruit at all from the graft or from one 4 year old tree, 2-3 fruit from two other 4 year old trees and ~20 fruit in year 2 and 5-6 fruit in year 3 for the youngest tree.
I only have one Black Sea tree, but it gave me 5-10 fruit in year #4 last year and 2-3 fruit this year. Very good fruit (same level as Honey Jar), but less productive.
I’ve been collecting a lot of info and thinking about putting out a spreadsheet and rating each cultivar by fruit (crisp/juicy and sweet being priority), fruit size, and productivity in my area (just North-East of NYC).
I agree with you about this year’s performance of Sugar Cane. I used to like it overall performance (taste and texture) slightly more than HJ. Not this year, it was subpar.
What is your review on Massandra? I like it a lot.
I like Massandra too. I’ve only got 2 years of production from the 7 year old tree, but that has more to do with the tiny tree that OGW sent, than the cultivar itself. But, the last two years it has put out quite a bit of fruit. Good sweetness and decent crisp/crunch, but it is half a step behind HJ/SC. The long, pointed pit is also a slight negative in my book.
While Black Sea’s fruit is a tad better, if I had to rank them, Massandra and So would both be ahead due to productivity.
Mike’s List, in order:
Honey Jar
Sugar Cane
Massandra
So
Black Sea
Autumn Beauty
Li
Xu Zhou and Bok Jo are both Massively productive and have reasonably good fruit, so depending on how important that is to you, they are somewhere in positions 2, 3 or 4.
It’s strange how some of my ripening times here in hot sunny long summer texas is different from you guys. XuZhou is my absolute latest to ripen and Redlands only beats it by a short time. I will agree that Chico may not ripen in time for you.
@BobVance have you had any Alcalde fruit yet? It was a fairly early ripener for me. Still wondering about it’s similarities with Autumn Beauty.
The bigger issue is getting it to set fruit…There is almost nothing to ripen…
Xu Zhou is pretty late for me too. Maybe another week. Shanxi Li has started to ripen, but none of the Li have ripened yet. Bok Jo just had it’s first one ripen. Tiger Tooth is later (and not very good).
No, I planted 2 Alcalde trees in 2019, but one died at a rental (a bit higher mortality…) and the other hasn’t put on that much growth and has never produced. If it ever does, I have it about 10’ away from a Autumn Beauty, so I can get a close comparison.
I expect to have fruit right up to the frost (probably about Nov 1st). A lot of trees had late sets, particularly on new grafts. Most of those late sets on grafts were at one site, but here’s a Xu Zhou graft at another site with some fruit.
The above graft was made on 4/11 and put on enough growth that the union is below the bottom of the pic.
Of course, given how late Xu Zhou is, I’m not sure if the ones with a late start will ripen. But, there are also a few Honey Jar trees with late sets which I expect to ripen late in the month.
At that point I’ll be envying you for a few months. My jujubes don’t start until mid September.
Based on several years of experience I would recommend Li and Honey Jar quite highly. Based on hardly any experience, I would recommend Black Sea possibly at the very top. I think there are a couple different strains of So, but I wouldn’t recommend the strain I have. I wouldn’t recommend Sugarcane based on my experience. I don’t have the other two on your list.
As for some others mentioned by others so far, Shanxi Li is below average in eating quality as grown in my location. Bok Jo is even worse, although it does seem to have very good production potential, which is a big issue with my jujubes in general at my location. I just tasted my first Xu Zhou yesterday, and it was pretty good.
Thanks all for your help and suggestions! @BobVance if you decide to put a spreadsheet together rating the fruit and productivity, I would love to see it!
part of my reasoning for listing HJ, SC, Li, and SO as my primary picks was not just based on taste and productivity, but availability. I don’t graft so if I can only get scion wood its useless to me. I’m just looking for trees I can get retail already grafted to solid root stock. those 4 cultivars are all available from Edible landscaping which I could potentially drive to to pick up or at least I know they can be grown on the east coast. other sellers offering pre-grafted trees would likely be OGW or England’s.
sounds to me like Autumn beauty, black sea, and massandra all have productivity issues. I’d get SO/contorted with the understanding it might not fruit but would be a nice ornamental specimen in low or no fruiting years, but I wouldn’t want several unproductive cultivars. space away from my black walnuts with full sun is at a premium on my property.
at this point, thinking I’ll just stick to HJ, SC, and SO/Contorted, but if you have more suggestions, please feel free to keep it coming!
One Green World usually has the most grafted jujube cultivars available in an average year. They usually have Black Sea and Massandra every year. Chico is widely available and is far better than your preferred cultivars (keeping in mind that tastes are subjective). Fucuimi and Maya should be available again from the Chinese Red Date website in 2021-2022, and they also are far better than your chosen cultivars.
Productivity in general is not a major issue for most mature jujube cultivars, but productivity of young trees, or given cultivars in a given climate, can be an issue. Black Sea and Massandra are very productive in the California central valley, far more productive than Sugar Cane. Sugar Cane and Autumn Beauty are average or slightly below average which is not any kind of criticism since jujube trees are massively productive compared to most fruit trees of similar size. I would also advise against evaluating jujube cultivar productivity in young trees, and young trees can be anything under 7 years old in most cultivars and in some cultivars anything under 10-15 years old. My Sherwood tree at 9 years old was producing only a handful of fruit. At 15 years it was producing massive quantities of fruit. My GA866 was producing very little fruit even at 15 years. By 20 years it was producing a lot more.
I haven’t gotten much fruit recently as I am re-growing my jujube patch, but my favorites now are Honey Jar and Bok Jo. Bok Jo is similar to Xu Zhou in being very precocious and productive, but Bok Jo is juicier and tastier. I took out Xu Zhou as it was on the same rootstock as Honey Jar and was out-competing it. Sugar Cane is also good but not one of my favorites. Many other people like it a lot though so I’m sure it would be worth growing.
I know you aren’t asking me but I planted Honey Jar and Sugar Cane this summer. I’m planting a small black sea tomorrow or Wednesday. would love to get my hands on Dae Sol Jo as a grafted tree. I don’t graft myself. Might add a So.
