Jujubes- Our New Adventure

[BobVance]

@Seattlefigs

how well does chico jujube do for everyone? i dont see it mention here as much.

It has a fairly distinctive flavor- most largeish jujubes don’t have as much tart to them as Chico.

In my climate though it has some issues, Here is an extract from my season-ending wrap-up last year:

@BobVance

Chico- Interesting flavor with some tart kick. I do like the flavor, but here are my complaints about Chico:

• 2 of my 3 Chico haven’t produced more than 1-2 fruit in any year, in 6-7 years. The 3rd, in almost full sun has produced more, but below average amount.
• Texture- not soft, but lacks sharpness
• Needs to be fully brown to taste good, but cracks easily with rain when close to ripe, so it can be a bit of a challenge
• A lot of the fruit produced was small and pitless (no stone). To some it might be a feature, but it irritates me, as I would prefer to not eat the seeds (no idea about how safe it is, and don’t like the texture).

I suppose that Chico is like Pingguo in that both have interesting & good flavor, fairly low production, and only OK texture.

I haven’t written a summary for 2024 yet, but the sneak peak is that Chico produced very little fruit this year. It was a slightly cloudier year and the already scant production was reduced even further.

So, my thought is that Chico is not very productive in Northern climates and has a few issues. But, from what I’ve heard, it is great in very sunny climates, such as CA and Australia.

I’m not sure about Seattle, though I suspect it wouldn’t be great. When I pulled up a map showing how much solar could be generated in different parts of the country, Seattle appears to be in a lower-production band than the NYC area. Maybe your sun is better distributed into the summer (with very cloudy winters), in which case, maybe it could work in some years. But, I think people in CA and TX have much better shots.