Jujube

[sidney]

I planted one last year and got fruit in 6 months, been looking for additional plants to no avail, I live on Treasure coast. Suggestions please? Btw, I love the taste, the plant is blooming now. Trouble free but has tiny thorns at leaf base.

[roblack]

PIN and Top have "thornless" varieties, which means tiny thorns. The PIN variety is tasty, green fruit, fresh and crispy. Haven't got fruit off the Top variety yet (flowering now), but think it is supposed to be red. You can find plants and seeds of other varieties on eBay. There are online nurseries that sell named varieties, but I think most of these do better in colder areas and may need other varieties close by to set fruit. 

[sidney]

Thank you, I would prefer to buy from a source in south Florida, I will check Benders in Davie.

[greenman62]

My first one after 1 yr produced a handful of fruit
the second year was a little more
the third was at least 50-60 fruits, and in fall it produced another dozen or more.

i dont know what happened to the tree, but it looked healthy as a horse
then died... the only thing i can think of was it had rained for several days prior.
i get standing water, but, only for an hour or so after very hard rains and saturated soil.

i gave it s few months to come back, but it didnt. inner bark was brown at the base.

so i bought and traded and have 5 now.
not to mentions seedlings and a 4ft Indian from seed.

Anyway, its all 5 first year to fruit
they all produced lots of flowers, but almost no fruit are hanging on
i am hoping its just the age of the trees..
maybe it was too much rain "
i wonder how sensitive they are to too much water
some Ziziphus species grow wild in the African Bush.
They may need dry weather to fruit ??

I LOVE this fruit though.
i dont like apples. they are too woody and hardly any flavor
at least the ones i have access to.
Jujube are soft, very sweet, not gritty at all, and flavorful.

i havent tried the Indian yet. the one i have growing from seed isnt large enough to fruit
i want to get scions to graft it when its a little larger.
i think the Thai is largest. i dunno how it tastes compared to Indian varieties though.

Maybe i will graft a Z. Jujuba variety to it ??
--

a couple of pics of the larger one that died.

http://imgur.com/a/zezqu

[sidney]

Greenman, I lived in New Orleans for 68 years before moving to Florida Treasure Coast. The jujube I have came from a local reseller and he said it was a Thai variety, got a dozen fruit the first season even though the tree was just planted 6 months earlier.  Was not used to fruit tree while in Nola except for figs and Japanese plums. Had I known about Jujube then I would have had some. The soil in Nola is heavy grey clay and does not drain quickly, here it is the opposite and is very sandy with high ph.