Easy Way to Remove Persimmon Seeds?

[Lucky_P]

Don't any of y'all eat persimmons or use pulp for pudding, cookies, etc.? I know it's the DeerHunterForum, but d@mn! Yeah, I've planted persimmons, crabs, pears and oaks for the hooved rats, but I'm mostly planting varieties that *I* wanna eat, too!

Most of my persimmon seeds are 'leftover' after I've pulped out a bunch to freeze back - throw 'em in a colander and mash, mash, mash with a potato masher until nothing else will come through, then throw the mass of seeds & seed capsules in a bucket of water to ferment for a day or two, then blast with a fine stream of water from the hose. That'll knock most of the seedcapsules off.

 

[Benja]

How late in the winter can I harvest viable seeds from manicured yards? I'm asking because this week I passed by a persimmon tree I had marked last fall. It's standing in a yard near a small restaurant and I quickly found 100 seeds right off the parking lot. All but one passed the float test. In the past I've always harvested persimmons soon after they dropped and didn't know if seeds are still viable after freezing multiple times.
Have any of you harvested persimmon seeds in early March (from coon scat or otherwise)?

 

[Fishman]

While I have not harvested any seeds in March, as long as they sink I think they would be fine. My reasoning for this is that if the seeds could not take being frozen there would not be persimmon trees north of zone 7. You already have the seeds. Plant them and hope for the best.

 

[Benja]

While I have not harvested any seeds in March, as long as they sink I think they would be fine. My reasoning for this is that if the seeds could not take being frozen there would not be persimmon trees north of zone 7. You already have the seeds. Plant them and hope for the best.

Thanks Fishman.

Apparently sinking is not the only test. After soaking the seeds for a few hours, I dried them off and prepared to bag them with moist pine shavings. Then I noticed that a few of the seeds were really mushy when squeezed and the corner where the radicle emerges was broken open. These seeds were often uncharacteristically dark; they did not have the rich chestnut sheen like the vast majority of the seeds.

I stopped in again later in the week and filled my pockets with another 400 seeds. Why not? It's harvest season. Time will tell soon enough whether the seeds are viable.

Moving on to my next project, today I pruned wild elderberries. Last year I rammed them into the ground fairly violently and carelessly. About half of them grew, so I'm starting a hedge to fill in the rows between trees.

 

[Benja]

This is an update to confirm that these seeds were viable. At the time of my earlier post I had put one bag of seeds on a heat mat with our vegetable seed starting setup. Today I noticed that dozens of the seeds had sprouted. Some already have 4" root radicles, so they sprouted pretty quick. I'm going to place the remaining three bags on the heat mat.

 

[RGrizzzz]

This is an update to confirm that these seeds were viable. At the time of my earlier post I had put one bag of seeds on a heat mat with our vegetable seed starting setup. Today I noticed that dozens of the seeds had sprouted. Some already have 4" root radicles, so they sprouted pretty quick. I'm going to place the remaining three bags on the heat mat.

What do you think happens in nature?