found it, here’s what orange beauty looks like ripening in vivo
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Can you describe the taste and compare it to a couple good varieties like Hj, Sihong, and Li…
Tony
all the Orange beauty have tried were ripened in extreme heat, at the height of or at the tail end of summer, so fruits may have been compromised(if the cultivar is sensitive to extreme heat). But even so, the fruits were pretty good! Quite sweet with a good amount of sour. It has more of a jujube-sour than a chico-sour. Chico has more of an apple-tart sour. Orange b is something that would prefer over honey jar, depending on my mood/whimsy. Perhaps many might(violently) disagree, but have to say orange b is better than sugarcane, as sugarcane tends to have a bitter aftertaste when ripened in july/august. Will coax orange b to fruit in oct/november to see if cooler weather would make it even more desirable. Thanks to @castanea, btw.
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It looks fantastic! Sooooo ready for spring!!!
OB does not taste like HJ, Sihong, or Li, or anything else either. I rate it above those three in taste but HJ doesn’t do well here. OB has an unusual combination of sweetness, flavor and tartness. The tartness is much milder than Chico. It just adds more flavor. I rate it higher than Sugar Cane. And it is excellent as a dried fruit. It is my favorite dried jujube.
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Is it the same size as HJ or Sugarcane, or Chico?
true to its name @k8tpayaso – the fruits are really pretty, with a nice sheen to it even at >110F(li, chico, and many other jujus develop a matte complexion in hot weather) , and as you can see in the picture, a predominantly orange hue
of course @castanea has the more definitive answer to this query. The Orange beauty grafts i have are still young(apart from having been severely pruned to share budwood with others), but can safely say fruits are bigger than HJ, and at least as large as the largest SC’s. Maybe a tad smaller than the largest chico’s.
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Quite a bit larger than HJ and a little larger than Sugarcane. Chico has a lot of different sizes here from small to fairly large. OB doesn’t have fruit as large as the largest Chico but the average size is probably fairly similar.
Keep in mind though that OB is still a seedling growing in a 5 gallon pot and my Chico has been in the ground for at least 15 years. I look forward to getting OB into the ground at some point.
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Chico can get this large here -
The largest OB fruit would be a little larger than the fruit on the left -
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What I noticed last year was that maybe 5-10% of the OB fruits had a constricted type shape like what you might see on some ornamental jujubes.
See the fruit in the upper left hand corner of this photo which has a small indentation -
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have seen hj develop those hourglass shapes too, at least those grown elsewhere.
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Great information Bob, thanks
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My order arrived today from Chinese Red Date. Like your’s, mine are about 3’ tall, as the box was 4’ tall and had plenty of room dedicated to roots. Similar to yours, most of them had some decent side branching.
Most of the trees (two Alcalde #1, a Winter, and a Fucuimi) were in the 3/8 to 7/16" caliper range. A bit on the small side, but not bad, especially considering the side branching and decent amount of roots.
The largest tree was Russian #2, at just under 3/4" (maybe 11/16"). Interestingly, this was the cheapest tree at just $30 (the other more exclusive varieties were $50). Such a large tree at that price makes it by far the best bang for the buck (exceeding Burnt Ridge).
They send up to 4 trees in a box, so my order of 5 trees was spread between 2 boxes. I haven’t fully unpacked them, as we have a couple more days in a cold-snap. This weekend should warm up, at which point it the highs will be in the 40’s for the foreseeable future. I think I’ll be able to plant on Saturday, or by Monday/Tuesday at the latest, as the ground could take a few days to thaw, after 4 nights of 12-16F lows this week.
Here’s one box, which includes the large Russian #2:
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I got 2 Li jujube from Ison’s Nursery last week cause they were on sale at $19 (overstock), caliper was about 3/4" and just over 5 ft tall bare root. Due to lack of space I planted them about 3 ft apart hoping to graft another variety on to one of them and obviously I’ll have prune between trees. I’ve seen other fruit trees planted like this on YouTube but not a Jujube, hope this isn’t a problem.
I live in Pensacola Florida, hope Jujube does well here regarding taste. Have no clue which variety or varieties I should graft to one of the trees coming winter.
Anyone have a recommendation?
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$19 for a 3/4" caliper jujube is an incredible deal. I just checked their site and the price is now $29.95, so it looks like they burned through a lot of the inventory they needed to and raised prices back a bit.
In terms of the spacing, 3’ feels a bit tight to me. At least in my climate, jujube need all the sun they can get and 3’ spacing could interfere with that. But, as you say though, pruning in between could effectively make it into a single wider tree.
Maybe we’ll hear from someone local to your area about what works there. But, I’ve heard that Tigertooth handles wet conditions and GA866 and Sihong handle hot sunny well. Of course, I think most jujube like hot/sunny…
I also ordered a jujube tree from Ison’s couple of weeks ago and paid $29.95 for it. Don’t know when they had it for 19.95. It sounds like a great deal with 3/4” caliper. I asked them to ship mine last week of March. Hope they don’t run out of all the big ones😀
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I was pleasantly surprised. Packing was top notch as well, no doubt I’ll order there again.
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Ison’s is really a great nursery!
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In the last day or so, I’ve planted trees from both Chinese Red Date and Bay Laurel nursery (DWN).
Chinese Red Date:
Caliper: 6/16" to 7/16" for most, with one 11/16"
Roots: Large, with plenty of fine roots
Bay Laurel:
Caliper: 11/16"-12/16" (just under 3/4").
Roots: Less than CRD and especially lacking in smaller/finer roots.
The bottom two trees are apricots (Tomcot and Harcot), whose roots were really butchered (especially the Tomcot). The jujubes weren’t cut back as far. I wonder if that was by design, or just luck of who was pruning them ready for shipment.
I’m going to be watching to see which jujubes get a faster start and put on more growth in year #1. But, it’s important to correct for the planting location. I put a couple of the trees at another property and it was night and day different from my yard. It had few rocks and was almost a joy to dig. I was able to dig a bigger hole and with far less effort.
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