My Shanxi Li is still loaded with big fruit, I’m getting tired of waiting, they need to turn brown before I lose my patience, which I don’t have much to start out with, lol.
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My homey jar is absolutely packed. Unfortunately, they taste a lottle watered down. They are browning up but 8 straight days of rain is causing alot of splitting.
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I got complements on my jujubes from friends at the senior center, maybe they want more fruit from me, lol. Honey Jar is in a container so that’s why they are very sweet.
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At some of the rentals with less than ideal water retention, I’ve been watering roughly weekly. Even though I water pretty heavily, it doesn’t seem to be enough for some of the jujube.
Here’s a Li with some wrinkly fruit:
Another renal a few minutes away (Reservoir, where the fig comes from) doesn’t seem to have any issues. The past owner had a garden covering the entire backyard and must have improved the soil quite a bit.
A tenant asked me if he could garden there this year and it looks pretty good:
The Jujube seem OK there, but the set is definately not uniform. Here’s a one of the more fruitful branches on the Li:
And a Bok Jo graft from the same tree:
Chico tree (first Chico fruit!):
New Russia #2 graft on Chico:
Fruitful Seedling graft (close to ground on NE of fence) on Chico:
Looks like a stinkbug may be taking an interest in jujubes:
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I picked some Li jujubes today. They are pretty sweet. I also had one Shanxi Li today, it’s much nicer than the one I ate in the beginning.
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They get a lot sweeter if you let them mature.
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Thanks, they are pretty sweet already. I don’t think I have any more patience. I’m picking them slowly so I can give away. I’m going to be on vacation soon.
My definition of ripe-enough varries based on how many I already have picked.
The one you have on the left (about 50% brown) is close enough when the season is just starting. But, once I have a lot already picked, I can be a bit more choosy. Or, if I don’t get to the site for a week or two, that makes it easier to pick them ripe…
Once they look like this, they are really ripe and very tasty:
Sometimes, they get an even darker, like the Bok Jo in this pic:
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So today I went outside and picked some more Li jujubes, one I missed and it shriveled, now that’s why I don’t want them to be too brown. It’s like a dried jujube fruit. What a waste. I prefer mine to be crunchy.
They can be totally brown and 100% crunchy if they’re watered adequately.
Here are three large jujubes with a Li in the middle. The Li was 100% brown and 100% crunchy.
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Yes but I missed one and most like will miss more in the future. I’m an imperfect fruit picker, lol.
Those are all pretty impressive looking. But, most of the large jujubes seem to take longer to get started than the small ones. And none that I’ve sampled have had as crisp/juicy a texture (at least, not yet), though they aren’t bad.
If I was starting a real jujube orchard (in my area), and had space for 100 trees, I think I’d go with:
40 Bok Jo
40 Honey Jar
10 Russia #2
2 each of large ones (Dae Sol Jo, Redlands, Tae Sang Wang, Shanxi Li, and Sihong)
Even if they take longer to get productive, I think some people would want the larger fruit. And it would make for faster picking…
Bok Jo 2017 graft:
Bok Jo 2020 graft:
2020 Russia #2 from Chinese Red Date:
2021 Xu Zhou graft:
Xu Zhou is productive enough, but not only is the fruit quality lower than Bok Jo (size is similar), but Xu Zhou often cracks and sometimes rots. And last fall it really atracted a lot of yellow jackets.
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Great recommendations Bob. I got around 30 jujube trees and majority of them were Honey Jar and Bok Jo.
Btw, the rooted Orange Beauty that I potted from 3 years ago is producing fruits like crazy now.
Crossed Orange Beauty jujube with a good tasting rootstock wild jujube. Growing out seeds in play sand bed.
Tony
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I tried to root Orange Beauty last year and failed - 3 times. I followed your directions.
This may not make sense scientifically, but I think the person who is doing it is just as important as the directions.
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Does anyone routinely thin jujube fruit? A large branch on my Shanxi Li just broke due to the weight from all the fruit. 
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I don’t think it’s very common.
In 25 years with dozens of different jujube trees I have never had a branch break.
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The only one which broke for me was last year when I was pulling down on an already bending central leader to get fruit. I had already picked a lot and was trying to get at a few on the top. Instead, I just brought the section/branch back to garage to finish picking another 3lbs…At least it acted like pruning and the tree isn’t so tall now 
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This is a reply to an old post, but I’m curious now why these jujubes in the YouTube video sounded as hard as marbles. They don’t look dry. Were they frozen? Thnx
sorry @kiwinut took me awhile to respond. Have been out of commission for a while but will try catch up with everything in this good forum.
anyway, those jujus were not frozen. Many cultivars crystallize when fully dehydrated, especially in areas with low humidity. I have seen bags of “jujube sugar” being sold in an asian grocery store here, which i presume is a mixture of beet sugar and crushed crystallized jujubes. Crystallized jujus can be rock hard, but some have a nice crisp to them. Crystallized vegas baby jujus taste eerily like froot loops cereal
incidentally, many fresh jujubes register higher brix readings than fresh sugar beets or sugar cane.
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