This one is a popular variety called Fresh Milk.
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It is a class of jujube, rather than a variety. Ziziphus mauritiana rather than Ziziphus jujuba (Chinese jujubes).
Iāve had them a few times from an Indian grocery store and wasnāt impressed. They looked (and tasted) like a bland green plum. Brix was low (10-12 I think) so while they were crunchy, they werenāt sweet or all that flavorful. There could be better varieties out there. But, to top it off, they are also not hardy to grow here, though 10B is likely enough.
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I assume that @george know that Indian jujube and Chinese jujube are in different classes of jujubes.
I also think it is possible to grow an Indian jujube in his zone. Anyway, your assessment of Indian jujubesā taste is pretty accurate. Most are juicy and crunchy but not that sweet. There are a few that taste sweeter and quite refreshing to eat. However, they never are as sweet or aromatic as Chinese jujubes. I like them the way they are (the good ones).
Those sold here are awful. Like most fruit sold in supermarket, they are not ripe when picked and shipped.
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Thanks Bob and mamuang for your feedback. I did hear back from Steve Murray who knows the person with this very large Indian jujube tree in SoCal. Steve replied that it was an Indian variety, but hereās what he sent me in his reply.
" They are éę£ "
I asked anothe friend who can read Chinese and he said it says ātranslate is green jujube, it is an Indian jujube.ā
I do remember the guy telling me it was round and large, and green on the outside.
Iāll be doing some air layers on his tree next month so I can add it to my collection. If itās a common variety that can be purchased here in the US, then not anything special. If it is rare, then I may be able to get cuttings to sell to some of you collectors and I will give the profit to the person who owns the tree. Did I mention his tree is huge, the trunk was about 10" diameter, and it has large branches (4-6" diameter) growing over his 6ft fence and over his garage roof. After I air layer the tree, I will probably cut most of these large branches off so it doesnāt fall into his garage roof one day.
Off topic, but I purchased a very small Autum Beauty from an online nursery that was mentioned here last year and that little plant has a few green fruits so I hope to taste a ripe one this year.
Autumn Beauty is one of those jujubes that could easily be mislabeled. Once you get the fruit,you can post a pic. Someone like @BobVance will likely be able to tell if it is a real deal.
My plant is really small, when I purchased it I thought it would not make it, now it is only about 14" tall but it did have many flowers and now I see a small (1/2") green fruit hanging on it.
I have a noob question. I got this Fang Yuan plant as a gift with my other purchases two years ago.
It has grown very little since and although it had a bunch of short but seemingly mature branches last autumn, they either froze or were damaged by wind and Iām back to step 1.5 with just flowering branches and one tiny vegetative branch on the side. Which may flower later. Is there anything I can do to boost growth vertically?
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Give them lots of nitrogen and water weekly. It will grow fast.
Tony
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Jujube have a lot of ātemporary branchesā probably this is what you had and they werenāt actually damaged. It just discarded the temporary branches. Idk how to describe it other than that, but yeah I wouldnāt worry about a freeze damaging it.
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Yes and that is the problem. Iād be happier with permanent branches and vertical growth. Rather than having a bonsai growing in free soil.
Iāve had this problem with a pear on dwarfing rootstock. Hopefully, Iāll manage to graft it onto something normal next spring as it finally put out 8cm of non-fruiting wood.
This jujube frustrates me. The first year was reasonable - growing more roots than branches. Second year, I had too many other problems. I think, this year, Iām doing quite well to be impatient with poor growers.
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I forgot about 6 small Jujube rootstocks and cleft grafted them with Just Fruit and Exotic Honey Jar scions a week ago with temp in the 90s but I placed the pot in the shade near my landscape wall. They are all buds out. I guess I will have 6 more Honey Jar with the total of 15 of them with 3 different sources of scions from Scott, JF&E, and Cliff England. The only differences is that JF&E HJ leaf are a little greener and longer. Also update on the PanZao grafts, there are 3 little fruits and hopefully they will hold on and mature so I can taste it to see how it is. Fingers crossed.
Tony
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This year my jujubes are doing better. Looks like Iāll be eating 10 times more jujubes than last year but still not as many as Iāve seen them produce. This variety in particular seem to be doing well. I donāt remember the name of it, I got the Scion from @PharmerDrewee do you remember the name?
It looks to be a fruitful variety. Unfortunately the graft is just leaves and no shoots.
I gave the two trees some bloom booster this year. Maybe that explains the fruit? Will do that again next year.
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Probably Hetian Jade.
Thatās what it was! I recognize the name. How could you tell?
Thatās the unusual variety that Andrew has and many other people donāt.
Mine grafted last year. I donāt know if it sets any fruit. It does flower this year.
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Only one Panzao jujube fruit. I have to protect it well for a taste test trial and the ripening time.
Tony
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My jujubes seem pretty inconsistent this year. By this point, I would have expected them all to have set. But, some of the trees are almost empty, while others have heavy sets. Iād be pretty frustrated if I only had 1-2 trees. But with over 100 Iām pretty confident that I wonāt be short of jujubes. Maybe Iāll have less to give away.
It isnāt even purely site dependent. I have one rental with 3 Honey Jars. 1 Has a heavy set, 1 a moderate set and the 3rd a light set. The one with the light set is partially shaded, while the other two are in full sun.
While almost all Honey Jar (and most Sugar Canes) have at least some set, many of my So are very light, even ones which had plenty of fruit last year.
A few exceptions:
1.) The big 12 year old So that I cut back very hard this spring, grafting a bunch of seedlings onto it. The remaining So branches are heavy with fruit.
2.) The So at one rental site. These trees were only planted in 2021, but theyāve reached full size pretty quickly and all 3 So (the only jujubes I planted there at the time) all have heavy sets.
Hereās a pic of one of the Soās sets:
I also noticed one of my grafts from this spring has fruit, which was exciting. I was a bit disappointed to realize that it is Wu He, which is the same variety that is setting fruit on a graft at my house. So, disappointing that it is only one variety, but it does make a better case for Wu He being a very precocious/productive cultivar.
Here are a couple of the So trees from this site.
Interestingly, I looked at a flood risk map (you can see it from within Redfin, though I think the provider is another company, First Street). Note that this isnāt a fema flood zone, as I screen for those when buying houses. I think these are actually more accurate (or more sensitive), as it shows the neighbors entire backyard at risk and they did get flooded during the last few big storms.
The X marks the jujube in the below pic, which are right on the edge of flood risk. But, the ground isnāt squishy or water-logged and they are several feet above the back of the property, which also isnāt water logged. You can see from the above pic where both muscadine and trailing blackberry are growing on the fence. Well, the blackberry is growing on the fence, the muscadine is growing in a big clump and probably needs some harsh pruning and training.
The other property where jujubes have done very well (precocious and productive, even slow/reluctant varieties like Sihong) also gets water. It isnāt showing flood risk on the map, but when it rains a lot of water runs in from the street into the front yard. So it may be that jujubes need more water than you would think.
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In my experience, I agree that jujubes are happy with water.
However, all my jujube trees are grafted to rootstocks. The one with Honey Jar on top has produced serious suckers every other day. The tree itself has not grown well since last year.
It has much fewer leaves than the Sugar next to it. It has more died back twigs than other trees. I wonder if those suckers have sucked the life out of it.
Sounds like it. Can you take one of those large sucker and re graft your Honey Jar scions to get a new tree in case the HJ die?
Iāve been getting quite a few suckers as well, at least from some of the trees. But I have suckers from both productive and non-productive trees, so it is hard to say. if this is an issue Even if it is an issue, is the sucker a cause or a symptom (the roots trying to sucker since the top of the tree isnāt doing well)?
There were almost 10 from the So in the front yard by my mailbox, including this one. I keep the area mowed, so this one popped up in the 2 weeks between mowing.
I went through and mowed them all down yesterday. Iāve decided to not try to transplant suckers anymore- it is both effort and could weaken the parent tree. Better to just keep things mowed. And I already have a lot of seedlings growing if I need more trees. Though at this point it is more in case I need gifts, as Iāve already got quite a few trees in the ground.
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