How does Redlands #4 compare to Li, Autumn Beauty, Sihong or other tasty jujube varieties?
I’m tempted to squeeze in one more jujube.
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Have been wondering the same! I’m located in North Carolina and acquired a GA 866 that probably won’t produce in my climate, so I’ve been thinking of top working it to Redlands #4
I should have some next year, but not this year, sorry
redlands is a good cultivar, quite precocious and productive grafted on li, and like li, has large roundish fruits. Where we’re at though, a prime li(ripened late sept to nov)seems to be better than a prime redlands.
below is a pic of a tiny redlands twiggie that produced plenty fruits on same year grafted
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I have never grown Redlands #4. I have Li 2 and I find it to be a little better than Li.
If you don’t have Black Sea, I would squeeze in Black Sea.
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our black sea was not as productive this year, perhaps due to our spring cooldowns, but quality of fruits improved over three years. Anticipating it gets even much better as our little tree matures.
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I have been munching on the top varieties of jujubes in my orchard the Honey Jar jujube. In my location, HJ is the sweetest, crunchiest, and more juice than Li, Sugarcane, Autumn Beauty, Tigertooth, Sherwood, Shanxi Li, Tae souls Jo, Dong Zao, …I will topwork another 3 large jujube rootstocks to the HJ and that put my total of 10 HJs for fresh eating and dry the rest of the other varieties. I freezed four of these HJ in a gallon Ziplock bag for snack this coming Winter and Spring.
Tony
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So, Tony, what are they like after freezing them?
Katy
They tasted like sweet jujube popsicles. I just wanted to eat 5 a day for the Vitamin C because each jujube is 70-100 X more Vit C than an apple.
Tony
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That is really nice that Honey Jar does so well for you. It does not do that well for me. I will occasionally get a Honey Jar fruit that is at its peak so I know why you like it, but for me Honey Jar is like GA866, an excellent jujube that just does not ripen well under my growing conditions. Outside this group I get asked a lot what my favorite jujubes varieties are, and I sometimes get frustrated trying to explain to newer growers that different growing conditions make a huge difference. One of the reasons that I like Autumn Beauty and Black Sea so well is that they always ripen well for me. But that doesn’t mean they will reach their peak under different growing conditions in different climates. Many of my jujubes are different from year to year. I grow at least 40 varieties of jujube,and my wife’s favorite every year has always been Chico, but while Chico has been good, it has been a little below its peak this year. Before this year we both agreed that Orange Beauty was a very good jujube but neither one of us put it in our top 10. This year it’s her favorite and in my top 3. It will be interesting to see if it’s that good next year and also interesting to see how it does in other climates.
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I put in Redlands #4 when Cliff told me its been one of the most reliable fruiting ones for him. No fruit yet though, its still growing out.
@tonyOmahaz5 I’m totally on board with you on Honey Jar, in my climate it is also a bump above all the others. I’d be in jujube heaven if I could get just one HJ tree cranking them out.
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I’m really excited about tasting my own SiHong because of that reason. @Bhawkins says they are good about 80 miles from here but his soil is a world of different from mine…and I’m assuming he is in the Dallas black land soil. I did taste a couple of Lang’s this year and I was totally surprised at how good I thought they were…from everything I’d heard I expected them to be bad but I can’t say they were. Maybe not my favorite but they were sweet with a pretty good texture. So it’s kind of a toss up what you get.
Katy
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@castanea by some coincidence all five of the jujubes I grow are your favorites, Sugarcane, Autumn Beauty, Sihong, Chico, Shanxi Li, so I will go with the Black Sea for sure.
Where are you in CA? Does it get hot and dry like Phoenix?
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It doesn’t get Phoenix hot or Phoenix dry here but it does get very hot and dry from May though September, usually with many days above 100 and some above 105.
I lost a tag on a potted jujube and couldn’t figure out what it was until this week. Here’s one of the fruits. It is very tasty and has a large seed so it must be Shanxi Li.
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hj is often of great quality here, but my issue with it is that i am a bit lazy, and will only have ‘enough motivation’ to harvest for personal consumption(due to small size). Harvesting hj’s for other people is not as efficient as harvesting cultivars with bigger fruits(that are at least as desirable as hj)-- since you get a higher volumetric weight for each li, sihong, or chico fruit picked…
if friends and family have a craving for hj’s, i would have them harvest the fruits themselves 
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Hey any new taste/production results on Redlands #4? My tree spent several years getting munched by deer and is only now growing above them. But I am needing to cull all but a few varieties and am thinking of top working my Redlands since I don’t see any rave reviews of it.
Currently I have Redlands plus Honey Jar, Black Sea, Orange Beauty, and Xu Zhou in prime sunny locations but want to move some other varieties in non-prime spots to the prime locations and need top working spots. Xu Zhou and Honey Jar are keepers for sure, Black Sea sounds like a winner, Orange Beauty probably keep and only Redlands I am seriously thinking about removing.
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My second year to harvest Redlands #4 showed a much better taste and more production. That being said I still prefer Honey Jar, Sugar Cane, and Sihong to Redlands. I’ve got room so for sure it’s one that I will keep…last year I couldn’t say that.
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Thanks Katy. I think I will stick a few varieties on it then … and try to leave at least a little bit of Redlands.
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