forgot to check @mamuang’s whereabouts, lol.
as am biased towards people growing jujus at ‘high and dry’ locations
but most certainly the case–soil and ambient atmosphere are too dry here! Tourists get dehydrated just by breathing our air, even during winter…
it is the great ‘equalizer’, offsetting your shorter growing season(compared to ours) by faster fruit development.
we actually documented monthly photoshoots of ~20 readily available varieties for our juju publication, from fruitlet development to fruit maturity. Below are the entries for the contorted’s sequence, one could gauge by referring to the dates on the photos
Same for the fruit on my Shanxi Li graft. I misspoke above- while this pic has 2 fruit in it, the branch has 5. It is a much lighter load than the rest of the tree, but I do remember Raf saying that a low percent of Shanxi flowers set.
Well, photography by flashlight is a good way to make my phone focus on what I want it to
That’s a nice sequence. Have you tried giving a jujube (Contorted would be a good candidate) plentiful water? It would be interesting to see if you can get it to cut the ripening time by 2 months. Maybe you could get ripe fruit in late June, given all the sun you have. Though it would probably be a lot of work to keep it watered- maybe once a day soakings?
This delayed ripening in dry area is more evidence that jujubes don’t need dry climate, they just tolerate it and like the plentiful sun. In nature, sunny & and dry go hand in hand, but humans can supply the water in a sunny area.
yeah, and not just shanxi, but pretty much every variety of juju. Even the super productive contorted, if you refer to the pix i posted above-- the tiny fruits have been thinned over a month.
i remember posting shanxi with fruits here but don’t remember which thread. Fruits are big, but don’t present in the grape-bunch way as the contorted.
some contorted’s and li’s ripen as early as june, but just a few stragglers. I have one at the lower part of the yard which gets more runoff water and surface soil rarely dries out, but from what could remember, didn’t mature considerably faster than the other ones. Could also be the height of summer(serial 110F’s or more ) and the low humidity which slowed the jujus down.
btw, is that really the shanxi specimen you have? seems it might be a different juju you stumbled into-- in the dark of night…
It’s labeled as Shanxi Li. I suppose I could have had a label-mishap. But if it looks the same as @c5tiger’s maybe it is legit. Or, we both got wood from the same source, which had a mishap. I should be able to compare it next year to the Shanxi from ToA.
Do the ones which get more water have better texture (crisp, juicier)? Even here, with a much wetter climate, I water when it hasn’t rained for a week or two. Next year, when I have more trees bearing (hopefully), I’m sure there will be some that I don’t take as good of care of and leave to fend for themselves. In fact, this past weekend, I noticed that one of my jujube’s was missing, covered over by rampant blackberries, grapes, and various other weeds. In a dry climate, I bet this would take a while to happen, but here it was just a few weeks.
It didn’t take that long to hack everything back. I don’t think it was hurt much, as it’s top was still (just) above the encroaching weeds. Here’s the same view, both before and after:
everything is ‘relative’ nowadays, so there’s a chance mine was labeled wrong. Incidentally, mine looks similar to what @mamuang has.
round juju’s rarely present as elongated shapes, and when they do, it is usually due to the trees being young or recently grafted. So there’s a chance it could still be the same shanxi.
the quality of li’s and contorted’s fruits don’t seem to respond to plenty water in extremely hot weather. They will bear lots of fruits which start maturing at the height of summer–much bigger ones in fact, compared to fruits which ripen in sept, oct and nov. With li, the taste drastically improves in sept, oct and nov, but the contorteds seem too stubborn to respond. Either that or other jujus are just much better tasting when grown here(compared to contorteds). Just recently realized we have gotten 50+ juju varieties to fruit the past severa yrs.
sorry @mamuang didn’t see this post until now(was sent by my account to spam for some reason). The hj will surely make it if they were formed last june. The shanxi’s bigger fruits may also get to the finish line, from my guesstimates.
moreover, you could anticipate your trees bearing fruits sooner as they get older, and with fruits ripening earlier as well.
Just ok. We are dry right now so the fruit was dry. The sugar cane I had several weeks ago was great, we had lots of rain and the fruit split but they tasted great.
Today, 9/19, we had a down pour. However, the temp will be in the low 80 for four more days. By Sat, day temp will be in the 60 's and night temp in the low 50 and high 40’s for a while.
seems like they will be fine with 47F. And if not, you could always look forward to next year, since jujus tend to be ‘earlier’ when they are more mature/established. Usually two to three weeks earlier across the board.
I think that they will be fine at 47 as well. I have one 48 and a few 50 degree lows coming up (next weekend) myself and have a lot of So and a few Honey Jar which are waiting to ripen. I have a lot more confidence in my jujubes ripening, than my figs
But, I think they do tend to lose their leaves much more suddenly than fruits like apples. Those still hold their leaves and a few fruit into December…
I haven’t noticed that yet. So far, they have been pretty consistent in mid/late September. But this is only the 3rd bearing year, so maybe it will eventually move earlier.
i was pertaining to the general difference between first year of planting and second year of planting, especially when planted bare-root(or grafted) on the first year. Succeeding years would then be consistent.
@BobVance
Could you please post pics of your Shanxi Li?
I would like to see how far along yours are. I believe yours are a month ahead of mine. Want to find out what they look like at this stage, for a frame of reference.
I’m not positive that mine are Shanxi Li, as the shape seems off. Here is a pic, as of a few days ago. I look forward to comparing the fruit from the graft to that from the trees in a year or two.
I’ve circled the 3 fruit from the Shanxi Li graft. Most other fruit in the background is So.
This is the most elongated Shanxi Li on my tree ( only 4 jujubes left). When it was younger, two of them on this tiny branch were quite elongated. I picked one off to give this one a chance to size up. It now does not look as long as yours but this is its first year. It could change next year.
