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Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Jujube Good Choice for Desert Production, Not Hachiya Persimmon

Fruit of one variety of jujube
Q. I just bought a new house with big yard at Summerlin. I am Asian and there are three trees I want to plant most but I don’t have any experience; Jujube, Hachiya persimmon and white saucer peach. I read some of your articles and decide to ask your advice before I take the action.

A. Jujube, or Chinese date, grows extremely well in our climate and you will have a lot of success growing it here.

The biggest problem is its invasiveness. Jujube suckers from its roots in new locations wherever there is water. These can be distances of 5 to 20 feet away from the mother plant. Over time, you could have a forest of jujube from a single plant. Just keep the suckers eliminated when you see them.

Sadly, Hachiya persimmon does not perform as well here as Fuyu and other persimmons. We have trouble getting good fruit retention (fruit staying on the tree) after the fruit has set. Plenty of blossoms but the fruit drops when it gets about ½ inch in diameter and the tree produces only a few fruit. I would suggest trying different varieties of persimmons such as Fuyu, Giant Fuyu, Coffeecake, and others).

The white, flat peaches perform very well here with a very high sugar content and excellent flavor. I would suggest donut peaches such as “Stark Saturn” or “Sweet Bagel” varieties. These peaches may also be called saucer or peento peach.


If you keep your trees healthy by planting with plenty of compost mixed in the soil at planting time and covering the soil surface with wood mulch you will have fewer problems. You can always email me with specific questions.

4 comments:

  1. "Sweet Bagel" is an excellent suggestion but it is not a white peach. It does indeed have "real" peach flavor.

    Stark Saturn is a sweet white peach.

    Both are flat peaches as you have described.

    Sorry to hear Hachiya persimmon aborts. Is that true for other astringent persimmons in Las Vegas? Any guess as to the cause?

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    1. Sorry for this late reply. Of the persimmons we tested over 15 years, Hachiya is the only persimmon that had very poor fruit set. I suspect it is a low humidity problem.

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  2. Which other astringent persimmons (similar to Hachiya) will do well in the desert. I am looking selection on this website https://raintreenursery.com/fruit-trees/fruit-trees-persimmons
    Thank you!

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    1. The Chocolate, Coffeecake, Jiro (which is Fuyu) and Izu all did well. Coffeecake requires a pollinator. I think the only astringent one on that list is Chocolate.

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