i read other comments in alcade harvest that Dr. Yao ( i think i might mispell the name) mention Alcalde #1 was her favor in terms of flavor but I dont think texture was mention. perhaps the growing conditions is required for it to taste best similar in GA 866 variety?
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Growing conditions make a BIG difference.
Alcalde #1 is the same cultivar as Autumn Beauty. Iāve seen references that both are Qiyuexian and I believe that Prof Yao confirmed that they are the same.
I had decent production out of AB/Alcalde last year, but this year none of the trees/grafts had much. There is some fruit on most of them, but not a lot. Before you said the above, I thought it was more related to the increased rain and decreased sun this year,
| Year | Month | KWH produced | Vs 2022 | Vs 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Apr | 1282.53 | -247.57 | -153.67 |
| 2023 | May | 1851.09 | 370.82 | 299.1 |
| 2023 | Jun | 1349.3 | -193.04 | -192.3 |
| 2023 | Jul | 1518.5 | -158.61 | 224.1 |
| 2023 | Aug | 1332.04 | -184.94 | 98.48 |
| 2023 | Sep | 1157.94 | -239.22 | -201.41 |
So May was pretty good, about 20% above the last two years. But April, June, July, and August were all under 2022, with June and September being particularly bad.
I suspect that this lack of sun is also contributing to the low brix that my overloaded Sugar Cane is still exhibiting. It did at least get up to about 20, for the almost all dark ones- they were 15-16 at the start of the season. Hopefully the later fruit will keep improving, as there is less and less on the tree.
Note the box-in-box approach. It lets me separate seconds quickly while picking. Sometimes I put an extra bag in there for thirds (something so damaged as to not be usable, but that I donāt really want to leave it on the ground). In the above pic, the bag just had a different variety (Black Sea) in it.
The next day, I went to a different rental (under a mile away from the first) and the Sugar Cane was much better.
This 2nd site has both a somewhat smaller tree and a lighter fruitset. So far, Iāve gotten ~15 pounds of good fruit from it, while Iāve gotten over 30 pounds of low-brix fruit from the other tree.
You can see a cracked fruit in the above pic, but the loss rate wasnāt that bad from the 2nd storm, about 10%. I think most stuff that was going to crack did so in the first one,
But on Honey Jar trees that I didnāt pick after the first storm, there was a lot of loss, up to 50%.
A guy I play softball with though Autumn Beauty/Alcalde was the best jujube ever too. I couldnāt see why when I tasted one. Maybe there is some flavor that Iām not able to detect.
From a texture standpoint, Alcade/AB is middle of the road. It isnāt horrible like Lang, but it isnāt top-tier crisp/crunchy like Sugar Cane, Honey Jar, or Black Sea. Iād put it more with the Xu Zhou, Bok Jo, So, Li level. Some of those (particularly So) can be pretty good in perfect conditions. But often they are only OK. I had a Lang yesterday that had just cracked due to the rain (yes, it rained again yesterday) and it was only OK even though it had just cracked.
In the week before yesterdayās rain, I picked a lot of jujubes. Over 80 pounds, even without the ~5 pounds my parents picked on Thursday.
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I donāt completely agree with that. Iām not sure how to argue with genetics but there are differences in my two trees. Lots of similarities too.
Iāve got a Alcalde #1 and an Autumn Beauty planted about 10 feet from each other (before I knew they were the same) and havenāt noticed any difference.
Is it just the prevalence of thorns on one which makes you think they are different? That seems to vary on a tree-by-tree basis. For example, Tony complained about how thorny Bok Jo is, while I had to look hard to find 3 thorns on my entire tree.
I donāt think any of the genetic testing can prove that they are exactly the same, as it only samples X sites in the DNA. Just because all X match, doesnāt mean that some part of the DNA that was tested isnāt different.
But, Prof Yao/NMSU has said that Alcalde #1 is āQiyuexianā and they should know, as they named it 
, so the question is if Autumn Beauty is also Qiyuexian.
Several nurseries selling Autumn Beauty also say it is:
Raintree: āQi Yue Xianā
Burnt Ridge: āQui Yue Xianā
And one of Prof Yaoās papers mentions āQiyuexian/Autumn Beautyā, with a citation to Ashton, 2006 as the source. Of course, it could just be one person who was wrong and got copied around a lot. But from what Iāve seen, they are close enough to not matter and plan to treat them the same going.
Just like Massandra/Maya/Moonlight are all effectively the same. Even if there is some tiny difference in the cultivars, it will be smaller than the difference 2 trees exhibit due to growing conditions, health, sun, soil, etc.
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@BobVance, @k8tpayaso
Do you dried your jujubes? If so, how do you do it? I want to dry jujubes this year esp. the 2nd that cracked but have not rotted.
This year my Sugar Cane have cracked more than Honey Jar. Massandra has only little cracking.
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I have a few that dry on the tree. I have never attempted to dry them because Iām not fond of the dried juju taste except on certain varieties and those cultivars usually dry well on the trees.
I had 1 fruit on my confetti it was small due to small tree. it ripen but i didnt get the chance to eat it perhaps an animal ate it. it looked like black sea sort of shape small with little point at the end. Does anyone have taste notes on this variety?
It really doesnāt matter to me. Alcalde #1 in my orchard has few to no thorns and is a trademark protected tree. It may produce a few more fruit than AB in my locale but neither of them impress me with their taste or productivity. Their seeds were a bit different but very little sample size because of low productivity. I have thought of top working both trees. So the only thing that makes a difference is I can legally propagate one tree and not the other but I donāt know why I would want to.
It is trademark, not patent, so I think you could propagate both, but only use the cultivar name (Qiyuexian), not the trademark name. I think Autumn Beauty is could also a trademark, as OGW lists āTMā after it.
After the lower production this year Iām not so optimistic about it either. I think both Castanea and Bob Hawkins like it a lot though, so it must be good for some situations.
Funny you should ask, as Iām working on that right now. I was just testing this batch. After 24 hours at 130F, they are still too moist on the inside. I set it for another 24 hours, but may stop it early a few times to test.
The cut parts you see are where I cut off bad spots. If the crack is still firm, I would just dry it as is. But if it gets squishy, I cut that part off. The top 2 trays are Sugar Cane, while the bottom tray is a mix.
I think Confettiās fruit size is small on any tree. I had some from grafts both last year and this year. I would describe it as a slightly smaller version of Black Sea/Russia#2.
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Autumn Beauty is very crunchy like most jujube cultivars. Almost all major jujube cultivars are crunchy if given adequate water. Lang is one of the few that isnāt.
Many large fruited jujube cultivars do not produce their best fruit when young.
Autumn Beauty is Alcade #1. Like many other jujube cultivars, especially large fruited cultivars, AB can have fruits with many different sizes and shapes.
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Alcade #1 is the same as Autumn Beauty. Like many other large fruited cultivars, AB produces fruit of different shapes and sizes. It does not have one shape and one size like Sugar Cane and Black Sea.
Autumn Beauty was always one of my top 5 cultivars every year, even when I had 50+ cultivars. It has a superb jujube.
As we have mentioned with many other cultivars, fruit quality tends to get better as trees age and their root systems expand. Presumably this allows the trees to absorb more nutrients, and more water, and to obtain more energy from the sun with their heavier leaf cover. Young jujube trees tend to overproduce because they are genetically programmed to produce heavily, but that production is limited/damaged by smaller roots and fewer leaves on young grafted trees.
This is why you would want to grow Autumn Beauty-
Every one of these was exceptionally crispy and sweet with far better flavor than Honey Jar will ever have.
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Iām not saying it isnāt. Iām saying that in my orchard there are (limited) differences in the two trees and those are not big differences. I havenāt even gotten enough fruit from each tree to compare them but what I have gotten is dry and spongy and they are side by side with trees producing good fruit. My trees are only about 5 years old whereas the other trees are 2-3 years older so they may improveā¦.I hope so because they have not shown me anything yet to make me want to continue growing them. I guess time will tell.
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@BobVance
Unfortunately, my oven cannot go down to 130 F. The lowest temp is 175 F. My friend gave me a small dehydrator so I will use it for this purpose.
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By the way, this year my HJ fruit dropped is fruit as soon as I touched them. Some were still half green. This is unusual. Usually, fully brown HC easily drop in my hand but the half green ones donāt.
This does not happen to Sugar Cane, Massandra or other varieties, only HJ. Not sure why.
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Iāve had the same experience with Alcalde #1 and Autumn Beauty so far here in NC (sparse, large spongy fruit), and Iāve tried grafting them to the branches of my older trees which sometimes seems to help in getting better quality fruit earlier. But in their case, the result has been the same so far. I have no reason to remove these branches, but others have proven themselves much sooner here in NC. For example, Iāve been very impressed with KFC and Churchpoint this year on even younger grafts.
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@BobVance
I had a few Massandra from the tree this morning. Wow!! It was crunchy, sweet with a hint of tartness. Maybe, it likes lot of water.
I should have picked most of my jujubes before the rain this past Sat. A lot of them cracked and many start to get mushy where the cracking was. Lessoned learned.
These are 5 lbs of cracked jujubes picked yesterday.
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In my nursery of trees I had many of them not doing well this summer. High heat, roots in black pots above ground and even with intense watering they had problems. A few lost their leaves and I put them in what I call ICU to revive them. This includes shade and a saucer below their pots to hold water that runs out while watering. I grabbed a large pan for one of them and now we are getting rain. This one juju plant is sitting in a large tub of water and has been for several weeks. It has revived, leafed out fully and looks as healthy as can be. Now granted I took it out of the pan of water as it certainly is not needed but that juju plant has been sitting with its roots under water for a looooooong time. I donāt necessarily recommend this long term although it is a good recovery treatment, but it goes to show that jujubes tolerate water very well. They may be drought tolerant but they tolerate and even thrive in wet conditions. I remember when I used to be afraid to water my seedlings very much. All that was just FWIW 
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I know that lesson and still canāt implement it. I did pick a lot before the rain, but canāt get around to all the trees. In fact, I didnāt get to the ones at home
On Monday, I picked ~25 pounds at home, with about 13 lbs of them cracked/soft. Iāve been running the dehydrator non-stop.
In addition to cracking and some fruit getting soft (often from girdled branches), Autumn Beauty seems to have a problem with rot spots. Iām not sure the exact name for it, but I donāt see it on most other kinds of jujube.
Weāre firmly into the mid-season, with So, Li, Dae Sol Jo, Allentown, and Texas Tart ripening. Here are a few pics of them with notes.
I think Dae Sol Jo was the best in the past, but the above 3 are all pretty similar this year. I donāt think Iād be able to tell them apart if sampling a random fruit.
On the other hand, I would definitely be able to distinguish Texas Tart from all of the other jujubes Iāve ever had. 24 brix and SOUR. Like a lemon ball, but a bit less sweet.
Texas Tart also has big pits, which Iām saving, in an attempt to add a bit of its tart to a crisp, sweet fruit. The graft from the above was on a Sugar Cane tree- I think that could be a good mix.
Speaking of that Sugar Cane tree, the brix is still low on the fruit. Early on it was 15-17, then hit 20 occasionally. Yesterday, I tried a few fully brown fruit and found it was still only 15 brix. I think the tree is just too overloaded, especially given the cloudy weather weāve had recently. The Texas Tart graft on this tree has higher brix, but even that is lower than last year, when some hit 32 brix (and were still sour).
Iām actually pretty impressed that the Sugar Cane fruit on the overloaded tree isnāt tiny. It seems that some cultivar have different responses, as a Nearby Black Sea graft which is packed with fruit is producing mostly tiny fruit. But the tiny Black Sea fruit is fully sweet. So, when overloaded (or not enough sun) Black Sea gets small and Sugar Cane gets less sweetā¦at least in this instance. Iāll be watching in the future to see if this is a general characteristic, or based on the specific situation.
Girdling has been a very mixed experience. Aside from a number of the branches breaking off due combining a weak spot and heavy fruit load, the quality is mixed. For example, one Honey Jar branch was ripe early and had excellent quality. Another broke off and a 3rd had low quality soft fruit (a first for Honey Jar).
These Sherwood came from a girdled branch that appears to be a winner. Sherwood is a late variety for me, so it isnāt ready yet, except these from the girdled branch. They are by far the best Sherwood that Iāve had, though that is only a mild compliment. They still arenāt up to the level of HJ/SC/BS. Most of that comes down to me not liking the dense crunchy texture as much as the lighter crisper textures of varieties like Sugar Cane. But the flavor was pretty good on these. I actually like the 26-28 brix one better than the 33-34 brix one, as it had more juice to it.
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OKā¦Jujube season is in full swing. Two big posts in one day!
I visited another 2 sites today and picked 26 lbs. Though 9+ pounds of it were cracked/damaged. The dehydrator is still working away and probably will for the foreseeable future.
Picked a large portion of the Honey Jar at one site:
(the 11.5 lbs is the portion that were good. There were probably 3+ pounds of damaged Honey Jars which were not in this box).
The other (shaded) one is just starting:
Continuing with the Sugar Cane is inconsistent theme, I picked 3 different Sugar Cane trees today:
1.) Shaded site, shaded location. 15 brix, not sweet, even fully brown. No insect.
2.) Shaded site, a bit more sun. 23 brix, sweet enough. Lots of insect damage (maybe 1/3 of fruit?).
3.) Full sun site, good growing condition. 23-25 brix. Some premature softening, especially on the girdled branch, which was an 90% loss. But the best ones were very good.
Some people at volleyball last weekend tried jujubes and one guy wasnāt a fan of Sugar Cane. He said it was bitter, so I guess he is one of the people that can detect that flavor. I tried several more from the bag and didnāt notice anything.
Several more are starting to come in. Two Sihong grafts have different shapes:
But the fruit seemed pretty similar. 25 brix, with only OK texture.
When I bit open one of the tapered ones, the pit was thin and split down the middle. Normally, there isnāt a viable seed when that kind of thing happens, but this seed looked fully formed.
KFC is starting as well. I tried one and it seemed denser/harder than I remembered from last year.
Chaoyang was precocious/productive (6 fruit on new graft). It is supposed to have a āsomewhat tart flavorā, but I only detected a slight hint of it. Texture was a bit dense for my taste. A bit like Sherwood, but not quite that extreme.
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