Jujubes- Our New Adventure

[Harbin]

Sugar Cane is almost round medium to small size (around 5g) fruit. I am wondering why is it called this cause it’s not very sweet compared to the others. But it’s not so bad after all.

[mamuang]

Harbin,
I truly believe fruit quality is affected by the climate including soil they grow in.

It is difficult to say one same fruit is excellent all over the diffrent regions of a country or the world.

We do not have to look far. @tonyOmahaz5 in Nebraska said his SC does not taste that good and has a bitter after taste.

In MA, I’ve found that my SC is very good, sweet, juicy and crunchy. HJ may be a tad sweeter but it is a lot smaller. That is quite a disadvantage.

Also taste is subjective. What pleases me, may not please the next guy or gal.

[tonyOmahaz5]

Halina is on the left, Sugarcane is in the middle, and HJ is on the right.

Wow, Halina is super crunchy and crispier than Honey Jar and Sugarcane. Sweetness is similar with all three. Halina is definitely a keeper.

[mamuang]

Can’t go wrong with sweet, crunchy and large jujubes. Usually this combo does not come together. Congrats.

[castanea]

What is Halina? Where did it come from?

[k8tpayaso]

Jujube in Central Europe

My name is Pavel and I grow persimmon, pawpaw and jujube in Southern Moravia, Czech Republic. Jujube crops heavily every year. Here are some pics of my own selection which I call “Halina”. It is actually the best fresh eating variety. [Halina01_1][Halina02_1][Halina03_1]

[castanea]

Thank you!

[k8tpayaso]

A few late crop Li…

[BobVance]

I picked my first (ever) Tigertooth yesterday on a 5th year tree from JFaE. Just by chance, there was a nice variety, from mostly brown, but not entirely, all the way to starting to shrivel. I didn’t think any were particularly good. Even with the recent rain, none were crisp/juicy and they didn’t taste particularly sweet. They weren’t spit out bad, but they weren’t that good to eat either.

One of them had a very soft pit as well, which didn’t thrill me (spitting out pieces of the seed and pit…).

Today I was looking at the tree, figuring out where I’d be grafting next spring. I’ll leave a branch or two of Tigertooth just to say I have it, but most of it will become something new (better) next year.

Edit: Note that there were no brix readings, as there wasn’t enough juice for me to get a reading.

[k8tpayaso]

I’m not sure what thread we talked about Burnt Ridge Contorted fruit so I’ll just post this here. I just had about a dozen of the above ripen as a fall crop and they were EXCELLENT!!! Sweet, juicy, and crisp. They were right up there with Honey Jar! Haven’t ever been that impressed before but these cool weather guys didn’t hang around any length of time!!

[mamuang]

Katy,
Now you have thwarted my plan. I am planning to topwork my non-productive So (like no fruit at all this year) from Burntridge next spring.

The darn thing has hardly produced any fruit. The fruit it produced last year was subpar.

Well, I may keep a couple of branch. Topwork to Sugar Cane is my plan.

[k8tpayaso]

Mine has not been productive this year at all. I had three fruit this summer and then about a dozen for a second crop. The fruit has always been okay. Sweet but drier than HJ or SC. It had quite a few fruit last year, enough that I did give some away and it was good enough that I didn’t feel bad about giving it to people—but I kept the HJ and SC for myself!! With all that I can’t say that it’s one of my favorite trees…not really all that striking in its conformation. However I was really surprised by these fall fruit that it produced. If it would give fruit like that all the time I would be very happy. All these fruit ripened at the same time and I had forgotten about them and found them at perfect all brown (and unblemished) ripeness. It was a nice surprise.

[castanea]

That is fascinating because I had two contorted from Burnt Ridge. Both had mediocre fruit and both eventually died.

[k8tpayaso]

I have a JF&E contorted that has produced bigger and better tasting fruit than this Burnt Ridge tree. I was totally surprised that these late jujus tasted so good.

[mamuang]

Here all my eight varieties this year.

I really like Black Sea, Honey Jar and Sugar Cane. If you like a little more tart in it, you will like Massandra, too.

[Bhawkins]

Sounds like my tiger tooth, which I took out

[mamuang]

Of those 8 varieties, Dong Zao, Black Sea, LaFleur and Vegas Baby are first fruit this year. If they follow Massandra’s pattern, I will be very happy. This is the 2nd year of Massandra, the fruit size is larger than last year and the taste is much better, too.

Shanxi Li has continued to diappoint. Its taste is not consistent. It ranges from mildly sweet to tasteless to bitter. Texture is from crunchy to fibrous to spongy.

[mamuang]

LaFleur - small fruit, large seed re. a flesh vs seed ratio. On a drier side. Nothing memorable this year.

Dong Zao - on a drier side with some tarness, not very sweet. Quite meaty which is a plus.

Vegas Baby, very small. I let them fully ripened so they tasted sweeter and has the dried jujube aroma that I like.

My evaluation of jujubes in my yard this year (it could change next year as trees mature)

Sugar Cane got an A for both taste and size
Honey Jar and Black Sea got an A- (taste great but smaller)
Massandra is a B + (tasted good and decent size)
Dong Zao is a B - see above
Shanxi Li is a C (huge but inconsistent quality)
Vegas Baby D+
La Fleur a D
Fruit from suckers got an F , taste sour, bitter and huge seeds.

[mamuang]

A day after very early and heavy snow. It took leaves of the trees.

After I took the pic, I shook the tree and picked up all dropped fruit. It is a Honey Jar tree.

[mamuang]

With no leaves on my jujube trees, I can see clearlynow. I realized that my Sihong graft produced 3 jujubes

Since mislabeling has happened from time to time, I would like to ask those who are familiar with Sihong to let me know if the one in the middle are Sihong. From left to right:
Black Sea, Sihong, Massandra.
@jujubemulberry, @BobVance, @k8tpayaso, e5 al,