I’m doing some orchard planning for next year and like to plant trees according to harvest times. It’s been challenging to find much information on jujubes. If anyone has experience with any of these varieties, I’d appreciate some guidance. I haven’t been able to find anything on the following cultivars. Even early, mid, and late would help.
Don Polenski
Kitaiski 2
Qiyue Xian (Autumn Beauty)
Sovietski
Yu
Coco
This is what I’ve been able to gather from various sources. However don’t trust this info for your growing purposes as I have not grown these yet.
Early:
So
Honeyjar
Li
Winter Delight
GA 866
Mid:
Sugar Cane
Sihong
Jin
Redlands #4
Tsao
Shanxi Li
Shui Men
Late:
GI 7-62 (Chico)
Ant Admire
GI-1183
Topeka
Sherwood
Li #2
If you’ve experienced something different, or have some info on my unknowns, please let me know. Thanks.
I’ve only had 1 harvest, but So is pretty late for an “Early”. The first one was ripe (about half brown, 20-25 brix) on 9/11/15, with more continuing to ripen through the last week of September. I picked a few during the first week of October which were all brown (~30 brix).
It wouldn’t surprise me if I see a similar time-frame this year. I just noticed the first fruit-set a couple days ago. I wonder if pollination issues can lead to a later harvest season (by the time it pollinates it is late into the summer…).
areas with long summers seem to disrupt the growth and fruiting patterns/quality of jujus. Sometimes vegetative growth is the priority, with few fruits forming on very long branches, then trees fruit heavily on second or third flushes of vegetative growth(but with shorter branches).
in las vegas, contorted, sugarcane and honeyjar seem to be most consistent in bearing plenty fruits early, ripening by early to mid july. Li is already edible, but at around this time, far from being ripe. Regardless, li’s early batch of fruits is usually not the best tasting. The second and third batches are generally more flavorful and sweeter.
honeyjars sugarcane, and contorteds will bear fruits quite consistently when it comes to flavor, regardless of batch.
in your first list, i only have coco, and is a young specimen.
only on its second yr of being planted(~10 inches tall when acquired). It didn’t grow much last year, but at least it fruited for me on year it was planted, and from what i remember, would say it is mid to late. This spring it added ~3 feet in height along with lots of flowers, but no fruits developed. Could be that it resented the very mild winter we just had earlier this year, being a native of ukraine. It is sending out more flowers on its second growth spurt, so hoping it will get busy with fruit formation this time around.
contorted probably is ‘early’ only when grown in areas having warm springs and hot summers. Their fruiting seems to be consistent, regardless of size, but even between contorteds(grown in similar conditions), actual growth varies. The smallest specimen i initially obtained is now the tallest and bushiest, while the biggest ones didn’t grow much(no development of primary shoots) and would rather just bear fruits on fruiting branchlets. Here are some contorted’s turning brown under the intense desert sun, some are already sweet:
here’s jin(aka chang, at right), and gi-1183(left). Jin is definitely not ‘early’, considering that it is being grown in the warmest spot in the yard. The gi-1183 seems not interested in fruiting, having been transplanted from another spot early this year.
I think the hot and dry climate are ideal for jujubes to bear fruits. My Li, GA-866, Sugarcane, HoneyJar, and Lang had thousands of flowers but set very little with all the rain and the humidity. I think Cali, New Mexico, and Las Vegas are more ideal environment to get a better fruits set. I don’t think I have a pollination problem because of the many varieties I have. I even try to hand pollinate them.
i hope you don’t give up on yours. Are you in Nebraska? I have seen some online posts(dave’s garden or gardenweb) detailing jujus fruiting quite well in PA and NJ, so hopefully it is just a matter of time.
i doubt if omaha humidity is the issue, since it also quite fruitful in dallas/fort worth area. Maybe dallas is less humid than omaha?
quite certain though that the longer growing seasons in the southwest(being warm early in spring, and warm up to fall) permit more than just one wave of flowering and fruiting.
They definitely flower for a while. Mine started a bit over a month ago in mid June and it is still going strong. Just in the last week have I started to see some set. I’m also seeing flowers open up on some of my grafts from this spring. Maybe that is helping with pollination.
I wonder if you could get them to set earlier with a high tunnel. I’ll wait a few years to see what “normal” looks like before I start experimenting with things like that though.
re New Mexico, i have actually corresponded with Shengrui Yao, not sure if you’ve heard of her, but she’s a professor at NMSU and they have tried growing fruit trees in a location named ‘alcalde’ where late frosts threaten the blossoms of the usual drupes and pomes on a yearly basis. Her team obviously got lucky with her on board, when they decided to try juju’s, since professor Yao is from china.
posted this little video snippet to somehow illustrate why jujus will ultimately manage to give you some fruits, should the first blooms of spring get damaged by late frosts.
peaches and apples will only flower on old wood, and only once in spring, so one will need to protect them with heat lamps, or grow them in greenhouses, which are not exactly sustainable or cost-effective at any scale.
incidentally, have been sifting through our old laptops to organize all the jpegs of jujus we got to fruit the past five years, . This was labeled as don polenski, and basing on the date the picture was shot and maturity of the fruit at the time, it seems to be a mid-season variety. We probably still have it growing on our trees, but never really bothered propagating/replacing the tags with durable labels as there have been better cultivars
additionally in our area, li#2 is mid, ant admire and sugarcane are early, gi-1183 is mid to late, chico is mid to late, russian #2(aka kitaiski) seems to be mid, ga-866 is mid, redlands seems early to mid, shanxi li is mid to late, sui men seemed early to mid, redlands seems early to mid, jin is super- late.
I tracked first ripening times of many of my jujubes this year. Here’s what I wrote down:
8-9 Black Sea
8-11 Sugar Cane
8-13 Autumn Beauty
8-15 Massandra
8-18 Coco
8-21 Lang
8-22 Shui Men
8-23 SiHong
8-23 Honey Jar
8-23 Ant Admire
8-23 Orange Beauty
8-28 Jin
8-29 Porterville
9-1 Li
9-4 Park
9-6 Sherwood
9-16 Kumme
I had more after that but got tired of writing them down.
Wish you’d kept it up- then I would know what won’t ripen for me…
Actually, it looks like you are about a month ahead of me- do you happen to know when the last cultivars started ripening? If any started in it was in October for you, they may be a bit late for me. I was still picking some through most of October, but November could be iffy. I’m not sure how well the trees would hold the fruit, as they drop their leaves pretty quickly after a hard frost.
Glad to see Black Sea as a very early and that you liked the fruit (from the other thread). I added one this spring, though it is still very small. One Green World sent out 3 small trees to me (Black Sea, Massandra, and Coco).
onegreenworld and rollingriver are the two nurseries which ship tiny specimens. Burntridge always has thicker caliper trees and often 3-5 ft tall, for about the same price and shipping cost.
of course, in the end, cultivar availability rules, as black sea, autumn beauty etc are not always available as grafted stock
Wow, thanks for the list. Do you recall what some of your favorites are? I’ve been finding it difficult to find rootstocks. Several attempts to produce my own have failed. It looks like I’ll finally be successful growing rootstocks from seed. Keeping my fingers crossed.
I can tell you that the last one to ripen was Winter Delight in early to mid-October and it’s almost always the last. When I give all of these dates, that was the date when the first fruit ripened. Fruits were still ripening in late November for WD. Next to last was Topeka which is hard to believe because it’s from Topeka Kansas. I still have Topeka fruits on the tree. There’s always some variation in these dates from year to year though.
