Chinese jujube / red date

Photo: Tokyo Watcher at English Wikipedia — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 6 through 9

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Crisp and apple-like fresh; sweet, wrinkled and DATE-LIKE when dried. Very high vitamin C.

Hardiness

Zone 6–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Sept

Mature size

Small tree 5–9 m; compact cultivars containerable

Light

Full sun (needs heat)

Soil pH

6.0–8.5 (jujube VERY alkaline- and salt-tolerant)

Environment

Warm-temperate semi-arid

Native range

Northern China, where it has been cultivated for more than four thousand years and where hundreds of named cultivars exist; long grown west through Central Asia to the Mediterranean.

Status

Cultivated

Years to fruit

1–2 yrs (exceptionally precocious — often fruits in its planting year)

Growth speed

Moderate, and precocious with it — a young tree often carries fruit in its planting year

Spacing

500 cm (197 in) apart — about 25 m² (269 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, glossy bright green, ovate 2–7 cm, with three conspicuous veins running from the base and a finely toothed edge; borne on deciduous twigs that drop whole in autumn, so the tree looks pinnate-leaved in summer. Paired spines at the nodes, one straight and one hooked, on most forms.

Root system

Deep, tough and far-reaching, with strong suckering laterals — the drought and salt tolerance the species is known for comes from this, and so does the crop of suckers that appears well away from a grafted tree. Remove them: they are the rootstock, not the cultivar.

Fruit description

A shining reddish-brown drupe 2–5 cm around a single stone, crisp, mild and apple-like eaten fresh at the mahogany stage. Left on the tree it wrinkles and turns deep brown, sweet, chewy and unmistakably date-like — the 'red date' of Chinese cooking. Very high in vitamin C fresh.

Propagation

Grafting onto Z. jujuba var. spinosa seedling is standard, since cultivars do not come true. Root suckers and root cuttings also work. Seed needs the stone cracked or a long stratification and gives thorny, variable seedlings.

Pollination

Partially self-fertile — much better with a 2nd cultivar

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.