From what I recall above, you have Lang and GA866 (which probably didn’t produce), right?
I agree that Lang is a very unimpressive fruit. 95% of jujube varieties will be better. I have several rootstocks which produce better (though smaller) fruit than Lang.
Honey Jar meets everything but tart.
Most jujubes will meet the sweet requirement. Other than Maybe Texas Tart, which somehow doesn’t taste sweet, even at 25+ brix
Tart is the one you may need to compromise most on if you want to meet the rest. Not too many are tart. In fact, there aren’t even that many that are sweet-tart. But, that doesn’t mean that they are plain old boring sweet.
For Crisp, do you count crunchy? I distinguish light texture as crisp, while a dense texture is more crunchy. Sugar Cane is crisp, while So, Xu Zhou, and Bok Jo are crunchy, with Honey Jar and Black Sea a bit of both.
My thoughts:
- I’m not a fan of Chico or Orange Beauty, though I plan to try OB in another location or two to give it a fair shot before completely writing it off. Neither have produced that well for me and the texture of both has been lacking (Chico needs more juice and OB needs more crisp/crunch).
- Even if it doesn’t meet the “tart” quality, you should try Honey Jar. It meets all the the other qualities with flying colors and I think you will like it, as long as small fruit isn’t an issue.
- If you need some tart, then Mei Mi is good, but you are sacrificing on production. It isn’t horrible like GA866, but it is more like Chico or OB (some fruit, but not overloaded).
- Sugar Cane and Black Sea meet the other 4 criteria and may have enough interesting (but not really tart) flavor to satisfy you.
- If you are willing to accept crunchy over light & crisp, then So could be a decent match. The problem is that it isn’t uniform and when not properly ripened (or some other factor I haven’t figured out), they are just sweet, missing the acid. It is definitely productive- my 10 year old one produced over 50 lbs this year.
Similar in size and both are over 20 brix (Cordifolia tastes sweeter). Eventually I’ll get around to making a bigger post. I picked another 5-6 lbs of Rossana today, but part of the reason it has been more productive is that one of the Cordifolia is 2 year old graft, which Replaced Jumbo and the other is on the opposite side of the yard and didn’t get any pollination, other than me waving a cut male branch at it a couple times.
Sorry about the reduced sale, @KYnuttrees. I’ll have to buy some scionwood to make it up
Here’s some pics of today’s picks at a rental.
Even freshly cracked from the rain, Sherwood isn’t all that juicy, but 34 brix is pretty high and it has a decent crunch. OK, not great,
Li was also OK, not great. I have it to my daughter first and she liked it. I don’t think that would have been the case if she had the Sugar Cane first. The Sherwood and Li were on about the same level, depending on what quality you favor.
The Sugar Cane were great, even though there weren’t that many. Super juicy, and light and crispy. The second flush/crop is now mostly done. For some reason, they didn’t crack anywhere near as much as the first crop, which were worse that most other varieties. The 2nd crop also has smaller fruit than the first crop. These are barely larger than Honey Jar (and some smaller).
Here’s a size comparison between the biggest and the smallest, Li and Texas Tart. Though the TT are from the 2nd crop (on a new graft no less), so they are at a bit of a size disadvantage.