Why Shouldn’t Jojoba Soil Be Amended?

Question

one of your articles “Jojoba Plant Care: Tips For Growing Jojoba Plants” by Teo Spengler (last updated on 04/04/18) states, “Growing jojoba plants is easiest in sandy soil, and neither amendments nor fertilizer should be added.” The part saying we should not amend the soil or fertilize seems surprising. I live in the Sonoran Desert twenty miles south of Phoenix and have extremely fine, yet hard-packed sand. A major problem here is caliche soil–the stuff that’s about one millennia short of becoming sandstone. Other gardening and tree-growing advice for this region emphasize to dig huge holes to break up the soil and do amendments to keep it from compacting again. SO I would like to know where Teo got this information. What are the sources?

Answer 1

Our sources are generally from university cooperative publications online. Here are a couple that she probably used to get that information. I suspect that because the shrub is native, it is best not to amend the soil.

https://cals.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/html/pubs/1003/jojoba.html

https://apps.cals.arizona.edu/arboretum/taxon.aspx?id=897