Jujubes- Our New Adventure

There are limits in terms of how short you want to go. It can get very difficult to use extremely short scions. Here’s a pic of one where I made a fairly ugly graft since I could barely hold the scion (all that was sent). I think there were 3 grafts I made with wood like this. One of the 3 didn’t make it, one only grew leaves and didn’t make the next winter and the 3rd one seems to have actually made it.

I think anything from 2 to 4" is pretty good. 1-2 buds, though I’ll generally do 2 (or 3 if they are closely spaced) if I have unlimited wood.

~8" stick is a reasonable amount of wood to send (and increment to charge for businesses).

  • It fits in the envelope and is generally easier to handle & label than a lot of short sticks
  • It let’s people decide how big they want their grafts to be (and nobody really needs more than that…)
  • Many people will make 2-4 grafts out of a single stick.
  • Wood is often stored for a while before being used. Each cut end is a place for it to lose moisture and degrade. So, pre-cutting into smaller sticks wouldn’t be a good move with regards to preserving the wood. Some people also put wax or parafilm on the cut tips. If I know I’m going to use all/most of the wood, I have started adding parafilm before putting the wood into storage (cut in feb, use in April, at least in my climate).

One thing which can make it easier is to make the wedge first before cutting the 1-2 bud stick off. That way, the rest of the stick was used as a handle. Obviously, it doesn’t work for the last bud on the stick, but it can help with the others.

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Rossana and Cordifolia can you please tell me about how they compare? sweetness and size? thank you

Thank you @BobVance, I almost was going to order 2 scions of Orange Beauty from Cliff. Now I just cut it into 3.

Tippy,

The Sihong from the branch I grafted last year set more than 20pcs of fruits this year.
It’s very crunchy and quite sweet too. I like them a lot. Thanks for the scion!

These are the last few harvested a few days ago.

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My Sihong is more dense but not that crunchy (compare to HJ or SC) and only mildly sweet. So far, it is in an “OK” group.

It could be that our climate is so different, it yields different results. Nice to hear you get good quality Sihong. It is Raf’s favorite @jujubemulberry . He is in a hot and dry Las Vegas.

Is your area hot and dry, too?

@jujubemulberry

I got maybe 25 Vegas Booty on a young graft. Here are some of them after being in the dehydrator for a while (and some need more time).

I don’t care for the taste fresh, but I like them dried. Dense, but a nice taste when dried.

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Glad to here that Booty tastes good dried. Like you,I don’t think it tasted good fresh.

I ate several dried HJ today. It was good, not excellent and small size is a deficit.

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A simple question…

  1. Sweet
  2. Tart
  3. Juicy
  4. Crisp
  5. Productive

My requirements for the ideal jujube. Can’t leave one of those out, all 5 required.
Varying degrees of sweet/tart acceptable… but some tartness required.
Which varieties would you say get as close to my ideal Jujube as possible ?

I need to graft over two trees next spring with something (as close as possible to my ideal jujube) or else yank them and plant something else. The fruit I harvested this year… do not deserve a place in my orchard. Time for a change.

Thanks
TNHunter

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Chico (in my locale) meets everything but maybe the juicy. It’s not dry but I don’t know if I would describe it as juicy. Maybe as close as you can get to all 5. Next I would say Orange Beauty that isn’t quite as tart as Chico and I’ve had trouble with production but with age I am getting pretty good fruit set. @castanea can give you better info on OB productivity.

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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 :slight_smile:

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.

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One more pic, this one from my yard. None of the 3 were that impressive.

The Sherwood I sampled for brix was the middle one in the pic, which was a mistake. It was only 22 brix. I suspect the other two were higher, as they are darker. I think they had a bit more juice too. Either way, the Sherwood from the rental were better. I had a few immediately after and they had much more juice. Not juicy, but at least not dry. It’s surprising how different fruit from 2 trees which are just 1 town away are. At least until I thought back to 2 trees in my yard producing similarly different fruit (one of the Honey Jars had much lower brix than the other 2). I’m starting to consider the possibility that overwatering the ones in my yard (a lot easier to do than the ones at the rental) lowered the brix. The HJ with the lower brix got more water than the other 2. And the Sherwood at my house got the most, as it was right next to the driveway (and hose spigot). I would have expected the texture to be better, but it was actually worse.

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@BobVance, I’m also getting Bob Jo, Black Sea, and Massandra, on top of Orange Beauty. Are they any good?

Bok Jo and Massandra both have good fruit, along with other positives (Bok Jo is massively productive, Massandra has good productivity and doesn’t crack much) and Black Sea has great (but small) fruit and very good productivity. All 3 are great choices for someone in my climate. In your climate, their productivity isn’t as important- you actually managed to get GA866 to fruit in year #2, something I thought I had done for the first time after 7 years (they either dropped off, or something ate them). And I remember Raf said that Bok Jo wasn’t as good when ripening in the 110F Vegas summer (maybe yours is cool enough to not cook them). And Massandra’s crack resistance probably doesn’t mean much when it doesn’t rain. I think Black Sea is still good out there, as it is on Castanea’s top 10. I’d think about adding Sihong and maybe Dong and/or Sandia too (very late, but good fruit).

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I think this is it for me. I’m also getting Autumn Beauty, Winter Delight, and Empress Gee from One Green World. In total I will have nearly 10-12 varieties if all the grafts/scions are not dead.

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Our summer is definitely dry but not hot like Vegas. Typical summer day time highs are in the 80’s and night time low is usually between high 50’s to low 60’s. There usually are a few days in the 90’s but rare.

The tree is in full day sun though.

I’ve been growing and eating jujubes for more than 25 years and I’ve never had one that was juicy. I’m pretty sure I have a different definition of juicy than most people, so I can’t help you on that issue.

The other 4 criteria are met by both Chico and Orange Beauty. Chico has more tartness but OB is more productive. OB is also superb when dried. Chico is only OK when dried. If you don’t like dried jujubes, try a dried OB jujube.

You never really know what cultivar is going to reach its peak in your climate until you grow it. Both OB and Chico were very good for me in zone 9 and both are good in zone 6 as well. Both are top 5 jujubes for me. Autumn Beauty, Orange Beauty, Chico, and Black Sea were almost always in my top 5 in zone 9. I haven’t had many Autumn Beauty fruits yet here in zone 6, but Orange Beauty, Chico and Black Sea are still top 5.

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@BobVance … you are right my GA866 set a few fruit initally (6 or 8) … small and pointy at the tip …but they did not hang on… dropped by mid summer.

My Lang tree (which was supposed to be shanxi li) is larger and very healthy looking.

If I can get scion for HJ, Chico, OB, Black Sea… i will top work both my trees and hopefully eventually get some fruit I like better.

Thanks.

That’s about what happened for me, except the tree is 7 years old and the fruit waited a bit longer to drop- mid/late September I think.

I thought of another one which technically meets your 5 points- Churchpoint. It gets decent brix, has some sour kick, reasonably crisp, and is reasonably productive (not on the same level as Honey Jar or Black Sea, but not bad). While it gets more sour, most of the other categories take a bit of a hit and the fruit is smaller than Honey Jar, with an above average pit.

I had some from a rental today I feel can be described as juicy. It’s been raining off and on for 2 days and the jujubes are as packed as can be with water. The Honey Jar I picked would burst with juice when you bite down on them. Even the Li had decent texture, which is pretty unusual for me.

At a different rental, I was able to check on Sandia and Dong. The Sandia is much further along than Dong, with 1/2 the crop 1/2 brown. I picked about a pound of them. Both my kids said they were very good. But, the one who also tried a less ripe Dong (maybe 15% brown and there aren’t many even that ripe), with 23-27 brix, thought Dong was better- lighter, tender, juicy crisp). The same kid who liked Dong better prefers Sugar Cane above all others and there is a similarity in their textures (different flavors).

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My last batch. After 3 days of rain and damp weather, 99.9% of fruit cracked and many got moldy on the trees!! About 6-7 lbs of them. Should have picked them last Sun before all this rain.

Primarily, Honey Jar and Shanxi Li. Orange Beauty tasted good. Sihong, even with so much rain and moisture, still are dense and on a dry side. Some Shanxi Li were very good. One I had to split it out literally. It was so tasteless making me feel like eating styrofoam.

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Any opinion about the following jujubes
Jin
Kima
Qiyue