Red Jaboticaba

Description

I guess that I first learned about jaboticaba from Brad in Kenner around seven years ago and was then looking for random fruit to include in my edible forest. He turned me on to Adam from Flying Fox fruits down in Florida. Adam is my kind of guy. Check out his videos on youtube if you really want to go down a wormhole.

The trunks of Jaboticaba looks like the gnarled and twisted trunks of crepe myrtles. Imagine a Crepe Myrtle with hundreds of fruits growing right there on the actual wood of the trunk. That’s a jabo. And Danny from Milo Gardens said he saw a giant growing in Broadmoor or maybe on Freret before Katrina.

Anyway, I ordered a tree from Adam in 2016 that fruited for the first time 2023. Then Adam told me about these reds. Not only are they hardier than your purple jabo. They also fruit between three and four years. They can even be kept in a pot and like to sit in rainwater.

These reds were started on 4/19/23. Jabo is an interesting plant and like any interesting plant, you are paying for time. The seeds pop up and then between month three and a year or so they do nothing. they’re like the Noah of subtropical fruits. These plants have rolled past that dormancy stage and are small enough where the root system can reach deep in your yard. think wet and shaded. A perfect understory tree for your edible forest.

And the taste? Some say it’s like blueberry yogurt. I think it tastes like those big fat grapes we used to eat in Busan, South Korea.

And if that’s not enough…peel off the skin and use the insides for eyeballs the next time your kid is having one of those strang and sensory Halloween parties.

And here’s some good information lifted directly from Adam’s website: Red Jabuticaba, also known as Hybrid, or Precocious jaboticaba, is a supposed hybrid of Plinia cauliflora and Plinia aureana, the resulting hybrid is a stable cross, that is extremely prolific in fruit production, easily exceeding that of Plinia jaboticaba (var. Sabara, the most common form of jaboticaba in the world). The Red jabuticaba will fruit almost all year long, except during periods of intense heat, or freezing weather. They can withstand prolonged flooding, over a month long in some cases, as long as there is drainage eventually. I keep my specimens in dishes, and kiddy pools, so I don’t have to water them as much. Mine stay flooded for weeks even months at a time with no issues. They can easily be killed with too much fertilizer (nitrogen in particular) so do not feed them heavily), they can fruit in shade or full sun. They hate salinity in their soil or water, and also hate alkalinity, so keep them acidic with low pH of about 5-6 for best growth.

This maybe one of the best fruit trees for those who want to grow something that’s comparable to a grape, but with a much more complex flavor in my opinion. They are easy to keep fruiting in a pot for many years, I think they could stay in a 25 gal pot for about 10yrs easily, before needing to be put in a larger pot. So they grow relatively slow, and fruit pretty quick from seed, many times in as little as 3yrs, but some take a bit longer at 5yrs (which is still half the time it takes the common Sabara Jaboticaba to fruit any ways!)