@jujubemulberry you’ve converted another person to loving jujubes. I received the jujubes you mailed and right off the bat got out a Vegas Candy to eat. I shared it with my girls and my wife loved. The kids were kind of stand offish about it, with one describing the taste as “yucky honey mixed up with leaves.” I didn’t care for the taste at first, but the more I chewed on it the more I liked it. It’s tastes like honey and raisins (I don’t normally like raisins). What is the parentage of Vegas Candy? Sihong was also good. They smell like brown sugar and taste like it. I prefer the taste of Sihong, but it’s definitely more one dimensional than VC, and the texture wasn’t as good as VC. Thanks again for the package Raf. It looks like a whole row of jujube trees are going to have to get put in the orchard.
i actually prefer sihong over v. candy, or over any other cultivar that have tried(and we’ve had 60+ and counting) be it fresh or dried. But this of course, is subjective. Glad you liked at least one of them. The sihong dates sent you have been hanging outdoors at 110 f for a while, so not at their prime.
VC is a bastard of unknown parentage, not even its mother. We got tired sorting and labeling seeds and merely sown them by the hundreds haphazardly waiting for any which might produce a keeper. We learned our lesson so now have duly labeled seedlings from sihong, honey jar, ant admire, and contorted. Impossible to know the fathers of our babies, but at least ascertained the mothers.
keep us posted! Quite curious how jujus will perform in your area.
that kind of sums it up, and just realized they even look like sultana raisins. Most jujus assume a deep reddish-brown in color when dried up. Vegas candy is one of the few that ripen with a bright tan, even as dried dates. Still hoping the fruits get bigger as the specimen ages
Raf you mentioned seeds and sowing. I’m interested if seeds produce the same tree as mother plant, or at least the similar qualities? I didn’t noticed that info so far.
Yes. Thank you so much!
ARe the VC and Shihong for sampling, or are their seeds viable to produce a true bearing tree?
Thanks again
I’m not Raf, but the consensus from those growing out seedlings appears to be that there is genetic variance among seedlings from the mother plant. For example, someone (maybe @bobvance) grew out Contorted seedlings and only some of them had the same growth typical of Contorted.
Don’t get me wrong, Vegas Candy grew on me to the point where I can enjoy them. Last night after I finally got home I sat down and ate eight or ten VC’s and enjoyed them. I still prefer Sihong so far, but I can enjoy a VC. What’s weird is my oldest daughter loved cardboard tasting green jujubes from the Asian market but doesn’t care much for them dried as dates.
Yes there is a genetic variance. Seeds do not necessarily run “true” to the mother plant. The tree produced by the seeds may have fruit greatly similar to the mother plant or similar to the paternal plant (which ever that one is in uncontrolled pollination) they may taste better and be larger or may be small and sour. It’s kinda of a toss up especially when there are unknown pollinators.
If you like the jujus and dates sent to you then you will LOVE the ones you pick from the tree!
it is a random thing. The contorted trait(at least the one from burntridge nursery) seems to be passed on from ovule to seedling at about ~50% rate, maybe even higher had i not given my seedlings away before they got big enough to exhibit the trait. @k8tpayaso probably has more data on it since she’s been good about the clerical aspect of growing jujus from seed.
i have three young seedlings(from ant admire seed) that just started bearing fruits, and they all seem to have oblong-ish fruits like their mom’s.
sihong seeds have relatively high rates of viability, for a bigger-fruited juju, and considering that it is my favorite, i have this tendency to disperse and advocate for their seeds, hence why you have some now
i don’t have much data on vc, being relatively young, but from the scores of pits i cracked, it seemed to have low rates of viable seed(and the pits are relatively small to begin with, so a bit difficult to crack the pits without injuring the seed within . Also not too excited about growing vc seeds due to the strong spinosa characteristics–thorny tree, and the fruits are(yet) tiny. Though i would recommend broadcasting the cultivar as budwood. Sihong is still that cultivar that would recommend-- be it growing from seed or propagating as budwood due to the cultivar not being too thorny, and the fruits have excellent quality, plus the fruits being medium to large-sized. It is also not as common as hj and sc, which have smaller fruits, and have more spiny branches…
from personal experience with ladies have shared jujus with for the first time, they seem to like the outliers more than men do. Some lady friends i know actually like the tiny and sour spinosa fruits more than, say hj.
Thank you people. That’s good news. Good cause I’ll have to plant a lot of seedlings and wait to fruit. Maybe some will be great and the bad ones will be grafted, at least I’ll have good rootstocks. How many varieties is enough? while reading all about jujubes on this forum I realize that I want at least 10 varieties. I like diversity.
that’s the way to go if you’re a promiscuous fruit-eater like me. Just have to try whatever is out there on this planet that haven’t tried
This is a root sprout from my Sweet Tart jujube that grew out this summer. Lots of fruit and lots of thorns too. The sprouts lose thorns as they get larger.
our Sweet Tart produced a couple flowers despite its size. Was worried about how it would fare on its first summer here. It didn’t grow much but shouldn’t be complaining, just glad it survived having been uprooted from so cal and then subjected to 110F. Looking forward to next year!
yeah, couldn’t wait for our good-fruited seedlings to lose that juvenile trait.
incidentally, and you’re probably already aware, taking budwood from a thorny seedling then grafting high on an old tree usually helps tame those juvenile tendencies. Only sihong was the outlier on our random graftings-- intriguingly got more spiny on ant admire, even though grafted on an upright stem ten feet above ground.
One of the sprouts you sent to me leafed out…barely. It quit growing when the branches were 2-3 inches long. About mid summer I thought I would repot it and it had grown no roots. It’s still looks the same. A few green leaves but no more growth. So for 7 months now it still has a few sprigs of leaves that are still green. I have no idea what’s going on under the dirt…. It surprises me that it hasn’t just given up.
That’s interesting. Maybe it will go crazy next year.
Hopefully!!!
extracting seeds from dried jujube dates is too much work, so best to check for auditory evidence before wasting your energy shaving off the tenacious pulp and cracking the pits.
need to max out the volume on our youtube video
you should have said that a year ago
too late the hero…
am i not?
yet again, lol
the juju nerd typing this has to find out for himself about the tiniest hacks and cracks, since there is hardly any useful tips available online about jujus…
I’m sure that takes a microphone and amplifier!!!