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Difference between Ziziphus Jujuba and Mauritiana?

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tropic_tester:
I bought some ziziphus mauritiana from TradeWinds a while back and I was able to able to get one seed to germinate. I am hoping to grow it as a rootstock to graft a known variety of indian/thai jujube in the future. But, I realize I don't even know the characteristic differences between ziziphus mauritiana and jujuba. I've tried to find info online but I couldn't really get any key differences. I was only able to find that jujuba is deciduous and mauritiana is more a tropical evergreen. I guess I'm just not sure if what TradeWinds gave me was jujuba or if it is in fact mauritiana.

pagnr:
Zizyphus mauritiana grows wild in parts of Northern Australia.
It is quite different to the Cultivated Jujube trees.
https://somemagneticislandplants.com.au/chinee-apple
https://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/media/Html/ziziphus_mauritiana.htm
It is still known by some very outdated common names from Australia's past attitudes.

Galatians522:
Z. Jujuba is the Chinese Jujube. It needs some chill to bloom and fruit. Z. Mauritania is the Indian Jujube. It is still deciduois in my experience, but will fruit with little to no chill. It is not as high a quality fruit from what i have been told.

tropic_tester:

--- Quote from: Galatians522 on March 26, 2023, 09:38:23 PM ---Z. Jujuba is the Chinese Jujube. It needs some chill to bloom and fruit. Z. Mauritania is the Indian Jujube. It is still deciduois in my experience, but will fruit with little to no chill. It is not as high a quality fruit from what i have been told.

--- End quote ---

Interesting, maybe my understanding was incorrect. My understanding from my local fb gardening groups has been that Thai jujube is a variety of Indian jujube and that it's quite good and juicy. I was also under the impression that Indian jujube is not graft compatible with a normal jujube since the rootstock would go dormant and the scion would die. The seedling that sprouted is quite young so it's a little too early probably for me to determine growth habits. I guess I'll wait a bit before I make a decision on what to do with it.

Eggo:
Z. Jujuba is the more common jujube you find in California. There's been breeding work done here in California and extensively in China.  The fruits are much more sweeter and more airy & drier compare to Mauritiana.  They are eaten both fresh and dried. These are the fruits you typical see dried called Chinese dates and used in traditional Chinese cooking. The fruits dry really well on a tree.  The trees goes dormant in winter.  They are more suited for dryer climates.

Z. Mauritiana is usually called Indian, Thai, or Taiwan jujube. Most of the breeding for them has been done in those areas. They are more suited for tropical or at least subtropical climates. For fruit sizes, some are the size of jujuba or smaller but some varieties are the size of small apples. The larger varieties are bigger than jujuba. The fruits are much milder in sweetness and much more juicier. They are for fresh eating.  They do not dry well like jujuba.  In my zone, 10 CA they don't go dormant but will stop growing in winter.  In colder areas it may drop their leaves but I'm not sure if it's a true dormancy like jujuba. Once establish both grow aggressively but Mauritiana seems to be the more aggressive grower here since they don't go dormant and has a longer growing season. I do not know how it will do in frost.  Both species can be aggressively prune back and still produce fruits.

I've heard they are not graft compatible. But not sure if that's due to rootstock going dormant. There's been other deciduous trees with non deciduous relatives like the persimmon and black sapote that were successfully grafted. But I don't know how long those experiments lasted and if there was any graft compatible issues in the future.

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