The sugarcane and the Li I had at my old house was never quite irrigated appropriately. I was just starting out in gardening as a whole and bought those two trees on a whim. They were sold at a nursery center called Redenta’s. Never heard of jujubes at the time, but was sold by the way the owner described them and how easy they were. The Li was never that good to me, but I now chuck that up to poor watering regiment from what I read about foamy texture. The sugarcane was sweet and had a better texture at the time for me. It just started fruiting, maybe second fruiting year before the house was sold and we started building our new one. So it is possible that I never got to taste it in its best more mature state.
Fast forward, to four years ago I wanted to try again with Jujube. I purchased a honey jar and a Chico from OGW. They were small if I remember correctly. Anyhow they flowered last year, but no fruit formed. This year, in spite of all the rain we have had, the Chico has put on maybe 10 or so fruit. The HJ tried. It looked like fruit was forming, but then they aborted. It could be another variety altogether. But I guess I won’t know for sure until it holds some fruit lol.
Last October I took home a decent sized jujube fruit from the local champion Jujube tree at the Fort Worth botanic. Unfortunately it is not marked with the name of the cultivar/variety, but it is clearly grafted and HUGE.
The fruit from that tree was absolutely delicious, crunchy, and relatively juicy. It was almost like an apple, but with more delicate floral notes. Here is a picture of the fruit that I took and ate.
Anyway, it really inspired me to look for another jujube tree to add to my yard, eventhough the wait has already been so long. One day these will all be fruiting… one day. Anyhow, I would like something with more flavor than just sweet. It doesn’t have to be complex, but something that is nuanced and slightly different in flavor than what I have already (Chico, HJ?, Shanxi Li).
The Sihong and Orange Beauty sound interesting. Do you know if OB precocious like Sihong?
Chico is a nice flavor but I found that the first of the season Chicos I picked had a rather flat taste and then they got better during the season. Also I had a 2nd late crop of chicos once and I didn’t even bother eating them. Someone suggested that maybe they mature up well with a lot of heat and that may be why. They need to be almost totally brown to be ripe. The tree was always full of fruit once it started producing. I think you’ll like it.
As a rule I’m not extremely fond of the dried jujube. Sometimes I think we have too much humidity to dry a lot of them. SiHong and Orange Beauty both dry really well and I like the taste and texture. SiHong is my favorite tasting fruit but some don’t like the density of it. I think it’s a bit more flavorful than Honey Jar et al. Black Sea is another good fruit but is another one that is pretty small. I don’t mind small fruit and since the trees with the smaller fruit are usually more prolific then you can eat them like grapes or cherries. Here are a few pictures.
SiHong last year before getting ripe. These are about the size of golf balls in diameter.
Those cultivars(Sihong, Orange Beauty, Black Sea) sound great.
Now when you say that Sihong has a dense texture as opposed to a more crisp texture, do you mean it is more like an apple that is more mealy than crispy? Like the comparison of a ‘honey crisp’ apple which is so crisp you can hear someone eating it from across a room to a classic ‘yellow delicious’ apple which still has a good flavor but a little softer due to looser cells in the fruit? Or do you mean that it is a little more foamy in texture?
Actually the HJ tree structure looks like Honey Jar. It’s more of a slighter built tree. And the Chico certainly looks right…. Kinda scraggly ( I say that as a compliment t—I like the way jujubes grow naturally). Do you get many pollinators? Mine started with ants and then progressed to flies and then wasps, bees, butterflies. Since the HJ is not producing fruit I might throw a little fertilizer if it were mine. I will sometimes fertilize mine before the July flush but that may be a little risky if we don’t get any rain. Sometimes too they will bloom again in July so that might be worth watching for.
You have a beautiful place and house. I’m guessing “metroplex” is a general area and you have found a bit of nice land close by. And the pears in the background look nice!
Well, I’ll keep my finger’s crossed your keen eye is correct and that the HJ is a HJ as I really want to try them, eventually… Hopefully the Chico’s continue to hang in and aren’t picked by birds or my dogs. I think I’ll take your advice and I might try to fertilize them, my soil is terrible. It is mostly clay and the ground, though perhaps hard to see here, has a slight graded incline. So clay+hill, means the soil dries very quickly in our hot/dry summers. Thank god I was cleared and got a well installed last August… Now I can water a little more than I was able to the previous years. Maybe if I keep them a little more watered I might get that second flush in July you mentioned.
As for pollinators I see mostly wasps, and a few ants. I found a picture of a wasp on the HJ I took earlier this spring. Sure made a lot of flowers, for its size anyhow.
And thank you for the compliments on my residence. You are right, I got my little acre almost ten years ago. I’m just outside one of the many suburbs of the DFW metroplex, it’s not too rural and not too suburban.
The pears in the background used to be fan espaliers along that fence, but one of the trees caught blight real bad and I had to chop it back severely. I didn’t want to reshape the rest of the pears into fans just in case I got another hard strike. The varity seen in the picture is my trusty ‘Orient’. It is my favorite, because it is super productive and can shrug off blight much easier than the Ayers or Kieffer. The ‘Warren’s are going to give me fruit for the first time this year also. So, in spite of my earlier persimmon graft issues this spring, I’m lucky that one of those persimmon grafts took, I have ‘Chico’ jujubes and ‘Warren’ pears for the first time. So that is a blessing.
@Thazo1979 I agree that your Honey Jar looks like the real deal. I have several of them and they were a bit more spindly than average for the first few years, tending toward vertical growth with stubby side limbs.
Notably, my Honey Jars in North Georgia are ridiculously underproductive this year. They put on a lot of growth and flowered profusely, but relatively few fruit set, despite them ordinarily being reliable. My Chico, though, has set well.
Here’s the Georgia Chico, which was less than 6 inches tall last spring, fruiting for the first time:
I also have a few jujube trees in Las Vegas, including two Honey Jars and two Chicos. The Honey Jars are loaded, but the Chicos sadly aborted most of their fruit in the early June heat wave. (Too bad, because Chico is my favorite jujube.)
I wonder if there could be some climate-related effect that is disproportionately affecting Honey Jar. I find it odd that none of my Georgia Honey Jars are setting much fruit this year, while most of my other jujubes (including the infamously parsimonious GA-866) are having no difficulties.
With you and K8t’s confirmation, I feel fairly confident that it is a HJ. So thanks for adding your eyes, more confirmation is always welcome. Your tree looks very healthy, and that is quite some growth in a season. Congrats!
Our climate has been very odd here in North Texas. We have had an unheard of amount of rain for months, which kept us relatively cool. But as soon as that migrated away, we were in the 90’s and full sun. That had to have been a shock. Normally we tend to oscillate with more sunny days than rainy days in our spring season. But this year, it was mostly rainy days. My evil Bermuda grass was happy about it though. I only say “evil” in that it is hard to remove around trees or garden beds, if you wanted to. It’s darn right almost impossible. I like it as a lawn, when we are deep in our dry summer, because it survives. But I curse it, when toiling in the garden beds. I’m thinking about replacing all of my garden beds to stock tanks, but thats a whole other topic lol.
It is rather interesting about your GA-866 being fruitful, when your HJ has not.
OMG YES!! And then there is Bahia, Crab grass and Dallisgrass. I think maybe Bermuda may be the worst but it’s a close race.
I find that mine (maybe because of being fairly young trees) will either put on a lot of growth or a lot of fruit but not usually both simultaneously. I have a couple of older large trees that are probably doing both but because they are so large it is not as noticeable. I don’t always fertilize mine because I fear I will not get as much fruit if I initiate a big growth spurt.
I lost my Orient to fireblight. It got into the trunk and then just became a host. I have a very very large Bradford pear in my pasture that is covered in fireblight every year. I really need to burn it down but it’s going to be a major job for us. There are 5 large trunks to this 30 foot tall tree. . Most of the Bradford’s are FB resistant but not this one. I have a young Red Asian Pear and a Shin Li/Korean Giant that have not fruited yet. I have not had to prune the Red Asian yet. Hopeful about that.
I don’t worry about that anymore. You can fertilize plenty, just wait until the tree is flowering, then tip or cut off the new growth. That should get the tree to re-focus on growing fruit. I found that out by accident one time and have been doing it ever since in late June with trees that are big enough (IMO) and need to focus on fruit.
One other thing to look for with Honey Jar is that it tends to have curled leaves in the early spring. I’m not sure how consistent that characteristic is in different climates, but there are times I’ve gone around my trees and seen only HJ with curled leaves. Of course, HJ is so precocious (and Tx is so sunny) that you’ll probably get a few fruit on it before you get to next spring anyway, which will give you a faster confirmation…
Blockquote k8tpayaso : I lost my Orient to fireblight. It got into the trunk and then just became a host. I have a very very large Bradford pear in my pasture that is covered in fireblight every year. I really need to burn it down but it’s going to be a major job for us. There are 5 large trunks to this 30 foot tall tree. . Most of the Bradford’s are FB resistant but not this one. I have a young Red Asian Pear and a Shin Li/Korean Giant that have not fruited yet. I have not had to prune the Red Asian yet. Hopeful about that.
That is so wild, how the varieties listed as “fireblight resistant” have different resistance based on locality. I wonder if the rootstock might also play a part, like perhaps the rootstock(whatever it is, because I do not know which one it is) on my orient might add a little more fb resistance to the orient’s natural resistance. I did not select the rootstock, and I do not know if that is even a factor; I’m just spitballing here. More than likely it is probably climate and soil types combined with the cultivar’s natural defense. But it sure is interesting to see how they vary. My Ayers have been the real problem child, I might cut them back al the way to the rootstock and graft something else to it like a ‘Southern Bartlett’.
Blockquote BobVance : I don’t worry about that anymore. You can fertilize plenty, just wait until the tree is flowering, then tip or cut off the new growth. That should get the tree to re-focus on growing fruit. I found that out by accident one time and have been doing it ever since in late June with trees that are big enough (IMO) and need to focus on fruit.
That is fascinating to know. So cutting off new vegetation growth will force the fruiting growths to push more growth on the fruiting spur limbs. Jujube is such an interesting tree.
Blockquote BobVance : One other thing to look for with Honey Jar is that it tends to have curled leaves in the early spring. I’m not sure how consistent that characteristic is in different climates, but there are times I’ve gone around my trees and seen only HJ with curled leaves. Of course, HJ is so precocious (and Tx is so sunny) that you’ll probably get a few fruit on it before you get to next spring anyway, which will give you a faster confirmation…
It sure did have those folded/curly leaves! I could not remember if it had it in the years past, but I do recall it having it this year. I thought it was because of our crazy rain we had this spring, but the ‘Chico’ did not have this leaf phenomenon. Ok. I’m definitely confident now it is a HJ. I’ll keep my finger’s crossed that if it gets a second flush of flowers in July that it holds on to its fruit. I’m going to actively keep the soil around it a little more irrigated this year and see if that helps. I desperately want to get a fruit off this tree!
I forgot to mention where I was on cultivar/variety choice in my last post.
I think I am going to hunt down a Sihong for sure. You sold me on it K8tpayaso!! I would like to find a pre-grafted tree, if that is possible. So the search will be on.
And then I would like to try and graft another type onto one of my existing trees. Perhaps with an ‘Orange Beauty’ or ‘Autumn Beauty’. Or…I would like to throw out a wild card here and say that perhaps graft a R4T3 scion, if I can find it. I read some posts about it and it sounds intriguing, if nothing else but for its curious shape.
You actually need to be careful…. You are beginning to display the symptoms of addiction!!! There are many of us on this forum that have fallen into that trap and we tend to pull others in with us!!
Cutting/tipping the shoots doesn’t push more growth on the spurs, it causes the flowers to set fruit.
That is every spring for us
I think Sihong is a good choice for a 3rd tree, with fruit which is pretty different from the other 2. And it is supposed to be much more productive in warm/sunny areas than where I am. I got my Sihongs several years ago from Englands Orchard in KY. You’d need to email/call him to see if he will have any for next spring.
If you want a good 3rd option that you can likely find a tree of, I’d suggest Sugar Cane. A potted one is on sale at Just Fruits and Exotics, or you could wait for next winter and likely get a bare root one from Grow Organic.
I have one R4T3 tree and have been grafting over it. The fruit has been OK, but not great. If you want to see my complete writeup:
If you want interesting shapes, there are several more radical options:
Mushroom:
I’ve grafted Gourd and Teapot, but haven’t sampled the fruit yet. In general, the strange-shaped fruit is not though to be as high-quality as the more mundane looking fruit.
But, you may be able to buy a Mushroom tree from Chinese Red Date.
Blockquote Cutting/tipping the shoots doesn’t push more growth on the spurs, it causes the flowers to set fruit.
Thazo1979:
Oh ok. I understand what you are saying now.
Blockquote If you want a good 3rd option that you can likely find a tree of, I’d suggest Sugar Cane. A potted one is on sale at Just Fruits and Exotics, or you could wait for next winter and likely get a bare root one from Grow Organic.
I had a ‘Sugar Cane’ at my first home, and it was just on its second year of fruiting when I moved. I mentioned this in an earlier unrelated thread about persimmons in Texas which led to the creation of this thread. But in a nutshell, I never had jujubes before I purchased the Li and the Sugar Cane that I planted on my last property. The Li was not good to me, but the Sugar Cane was sweet and crunchy. The only thing is that I didn’t notice much of flavor in the Sugar Cane at the time. So I was just like, “Eh, its alright I guess”. But I decided to buy a few more Jujubes for my new property four years ago(Chico, Shanxi Li, Honey Jar) because I knew they were easy fruit trees. Then, last October I ate a jujube fruit from the champion Jujube tree at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and was blown away by how good it was. I have no idea what cultivar it was because the sign just said what tree species was, but you could tell it was grafted since the rootstock was slightly smaller than the rest of the tree. Anyhow that is when I started really looking back into jujubes. So now, I realize that the Sugar Cane and Li were probably just underwater and perhaps needed another year or two to really develop its flavor. All that to say that I might get another sugar cane, or I might graft one to one of the others I already have, in the future.
Blockquote I have one R4T3 tree and have been grafting over it. The fruit has been OK, but not great. If you want to see my complete writeup:
I’ll check it out.
Blockquote I’ve grafted Gourd and Teapot, but haven’t sampled the fruit yet. In general, the strange-shaped fruit is not though to be as high-quality as the more mundane looking fruit.
Wow the mushroom, gourd, and teapot sure are funky. I don’t mind having something more ornamental so long as the flavor is passing as “ok”. But if the flavor is bland to terrible, I don’t know if I could justify having it. I mean I still have space on my property, but what do you do with hundreds of fruit that are cool to look at but terrible to eat?
. Most of the Bradford’s are FB resistant but not this one. I have a young Red Asian Pear and a Shin Li/Korean Giant that have not fruited yet. I have not had to prune the Red Asian yet. Hopeful about that.
