Sugar Cane

'Sugar Cane' came to the United States not from China but from the Nikita Botanical Garden on the Crimean Peninsula, imported by James Gilbert in the 1990s under the name Yalta #1 and renamed by Roger Meyer for the way it eats. It also circulates under the trademark Coco. NMSU groups it as a genuine multipurpose cultivar: the fruit is small enough to be a snacking jujube and sweet enough to dry well, and the tree is productive and adaptable across a wide swath of New Mexico. Its early to mid-season ripening makes it one of the more dependable choices for short-season and marginal areas, and it has a reputation for performing especially well in hot desert conditions. The main drawback is thorns — the canopy is genuinely spiny.