Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Vol. LXIII, Issue 2
Written by Florin STĂNICĂ
Chinese jujube is a new fruit specie for Europe with a high potential to be planted on arid and semiarid areas on marginal, poor and even salty soils. Being a multimillennial fruit crop in China, jujube has a high importance in the Chinese diet due to its complex nutraceutical properties. Nearly 1000 varieties and local genotypes are cultivated in China on over 2 million hectares on low input production systems. Even if it was introduced in Dobrogea region, some 2,000 years ago by the Greek and Roman colonists, jujube plants and fruits are nearly unknown, as it happens in other countries from the Mediterranean basin. The first cultivated varieties were introduced at the Faculty of Horticulture in Bucharest from Shanxi Province, China within a common research project in 1997. During more than twenty years, a complex research program has been carried out. The first task was to determine the adaptation of the most important jujube genotypes at the local growing conditions. A second topic was to establish the best propagation method by using seedling production for rootstocks, grafting techniques and in vitro propagation. Other researches on jujube phenology, fruit biochemical composition, fruit storage and consumer preferences have been realized. The local jujube genotypes from Ostrov and Jurilovca have been studied and described. The paper presents a synthesis of the most important results achieved during two decades of jujube research and the opportunity to extend the cultivation of jujube in Romania as a new “super fruit”.
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