Jujube, an Alternative Crop for the Southern and Southwestern United States

Jujube cultivars were first imported into the United States in 1908. Now, the commercial production is limited but jujube is distributed widely, growing and producing well in the United States, especially in the Southwestern region. Jujubes leaf out late in season and can avoid late frosts in most year in late frost devastated areas like New Mexico. Even when the early growth is frost-killed, they can regenerate themselves and still set fruit, as occurred in 2014. From 2010 to 2014, we had less than two apple crops but a reliable jujube crop every year. Jujube adapts well to wide range of soil and climate conditions. This drought tolerant crop has fewer pest and disease problems than apples or peaches. Jujube produces high quality fruit in the semiarid Southwest. In rainy/humid areas, especially with frequent rains around harvest time, fruit cracking and disease can ruin the crop. Jujube fruit is nutritious with vitamin C content of 200–600 mg/100g fresh weight. Mature jujube fruit has soluble solid content of 25% to 35% or higher. Now, as people are more concerned about healthy diet, consumers are interested in jujubes for its nutritional value and health benefits. Growers from different states are interested in growing jujubes, but commercially available cultivars and research and extension support are limited. The New Mexico State University Alcalde center has imported/collected over 50 cultivars since 2011 and observes their growing habits, flowering and fruiting habits and evaluates their fruit. We also conducted basic fruit cold storage and fruit processing study. Several promising cultivars have been identified for fresh eating, drying and ornamentals. Jujube is not only a good alternative crop for commercial production but also good edible landscape plants. ‘Li’, ‘Li-2’, and ‘Redland’ were self-fruitful while ‘Lang’ was not. Sun dried fruit kept less than 10% of the fresh fruit vitamin C content but processed products from fresh fruit kept fruit vitamin C well. Jujubes steamed or boiled for 20 minutes retained over 80% of their original vitamin C content while pie retained 50% of its original vitamin C. After tasting jujubes in our jujube fruit tasting workshops each year, customers were impressed with its fruit quality and interested in planting and consuming jujubes.