Inventory for Resale

[wbpdeer]

Trees I Am Considering for Resale in 2024

I am asking my forum friends to weigh in on thoughts about nut trees to inventory for resale. For my purposes, I will avoid pears and apples for this discussion.

Chestnuts, DCO, Sawtooth, Chinkapin, Swamp White Oak, Pin Oak, Nuttall Oak

Persimmon, Elderberry -Mulberry (Maybe/Maybe Not)

This list has 9 or 10 on it. Each habitat situation varies regarding weather, topography, rainfall, timber, open fields, etc. What works for you might not work for your hunting buddy one or two counties away. Regarding the acorn and nut trees on the list, some can be planted in wetter ground, and some can't.

Please tell me what you believe should be added to this list and what should be eliminated. I am not a nursery setting, I am a hobbyist with some growing resources that I am about to add to. I will remain a one-man operation.

I would consider central Kentucky and 2/3 of Tennessee to be the area I would concentrate on. Not interested in shipping trees but would deliver in a reasonable distance with certain purchase totals. I have nut bearing trees on my home property (chestnuts, sawtooth & DCO). The others I don't have them on my property at home or the farm currently.

Once again, for purposes of this discussion, I am not discussing pear trees not apple trees. A one-man operation can't be an end all, be all tree grower.

About to tear down my garage and build a nice shop back in its place. I will have a propagation grow room on the south side of this new structure. I am about 50/50 on covering my greenhouse for the winter to grow inside which would mean some heating expenses: shop building expenses will impact what I do.

Let it rip folks, I am hopeful to learn some things that will help me make wise choices and avoid some failures.

wbpdeer

 

[yoderjac]

Wayne,

Are you trying to start a money making business or simply offset some of the cost of a fun hobby? If it is primarily the latter, I think it is a great idea. The reason I started growing trees indoors from nuts indoors under lights in rootmakers was because all the local trees I could find were either bare root or grown in smooth sided containers. If I had a source like the one you are describing back then, I would have purchased trees. A large part of the cost of cost of a tree with a good root system intact is transportation. If I could have gone to a local nursery and picked up trees, I would not have invested in growing my own.

On the flip side, I really learned a lot and enjoyed the cabin fever project when I was doing it. I probably recouped about 70% of my setup cost when I sold my rootmaker containers when I was done.

You have a good list of trees, in general, but given your focus area, I'd be tempted to concentrate on chestnuts and persimmons. I think most of that area plenty of acorns. I'm in VA, but I have relatives in central TN that I've visited often. I can see folks in areas where there are few trees and mostly open farm land benefiting from general hard mast producing trees. The reason I would include chestnuts is that, first, you are an addicted expert at growing them, and second they provide consistent hard mast in years when native oaks don't. Sawtooth fill a similar niche. Persimmons do very well in your target area. There are two strategies with persimmons. One is planting them. The other is grafting them with female scions. If you select the right varieties, you can have soft mast falling from September through February. Both of these approaches tend to provide more food and attraction during years when most native trees are not producing well. You could sell both persimmons, and scions from trees you have with known drop dates. Scions are inexpensive to ship, but the buyer needs to have native persimmons growing on his property.

One tree I would consider adding to your list is Jujube, specifically tigertooth. I read an article on these many years ago by David Osborne in Quality Whitetails. They looked interesting so I purchased a few bare root tigertooth from a nursery in Florida. I was not sure how well they would do in my area and whether they would benefit deer. They took a long time, but I can now declare them a success for me. Given similar climate to your target area, I would consider them. Many Jujube need a pollination partner, but Tigertooth don't. Most Jujube are grown on "wild" or 'native" jujube root stock. This "wild" rootstock puts up a lot of suckers that produce thickets of thorny trees that don't produce quality fruit. I purchased my tigertooth grown on their own rootstock. That means that if they do sucker, the new trees will have the same quality fruit as the parent. I found they don't sucker as much and simply mowing controls them easily. They fruit prolifically every year now that they are mature. Both deer and turkey love them. I've watched turkey fight over them. They hold the fruit well into November which is great for hunting attraction.

I have not tried growing them from seed, but I did propagate them by taking root cuttings with some success. Here is a tree when I first planted them:

Here is a picture of turkey enjoying the fruit:

Here is a tree where you can see the fruit. Note that it is not ripe as it turns bright red when ripe:

 

[wbpdeer]

Wayne,

Are you trying to start a money making business or simply offset some of the cost of a fun hobby? If it is primarily the latter, I think it is a great idea. The reason I started growing trees indoors from nuts indoors under lights in rootmakers was because all the local trees I could find were either bare root or grown in smooth sided containers. If I had a source like the one you are describing back then, I would have purchased trees. A large part of the cost of cost of a tree with a good root system intact is transportation. If I could have gone to a local nursery and picked up trees, I would not have invested in growing my own.

On the flip side, I really learned a lot and enjoyed the cabin fever project when I was doing it. I probably recouped about 70% of my setup cost when I sold my rootmaker containers when I was done.

You have a good list of trees, in general, but given your focus area, I'd be tempted to concentrate on chestnuts and persimmons. I think most of that area plenty of acorns. I'm in VA, but I have relatives in central TN that I've visited often. I can see folks in areas where there are few trees and mostly open farm land benefiting from general hard mast producing trees. The reason I would include chestnuts is that, first, you are an addicted expert at growing them, and second they provide consistent hard mast in years when native oaks don't. Sawtooth fill a similar niche. Persimmons do very well in your target area. There are two strategies with persimmons. One is planting them. The other is grafting them with female scions. If you select the right varieties, you can have soft mast falling from September through February. Both of these approaches tend to provide more food and attraction during years when most native trees are not producing well. You could sell both persimmons, and scions from trees you have with known drop dates. Scions are inexpensive to ship, but the buyer needs to have native persimmons growing on his property.

One tree I would consider adding to your list is Jujube, specifically tigertooth. I read an article on these many years ago by David Osborne in Quality Whitetails. They looked interesting so I purchased a few bare root tigertooth from a nursery in Florida. I was not sure how well they would do in my area and whether they would benefit deer. They took a long time, but I can now declare them a success for me. Given similar climate to your target area, I would consider them. Many Jujube need a pollination partner, but Tigertooth don't. Most Jujube are grown on "wild" or 'native" jujube root stock. This "wild" rootstock puts up a lot of suckers that produce thickets of thorny trees that don't produce quality fruit. I purchased my tigertooth grown on their own rootstock. That means that if they do sucker, the new trees will have the same quality fruit as the parent. I found they don't sucker as much and simply mowing controls them easily. They fruit prolifically every year now that they are mature. Both deer and turkey love them. I've watched turkey fight over them. They hold the fruit well into November which is great for hunting attraction.

I have not tried growing them from seed, but I did propagate them by taking root cuttings with some success. Here is a tree when I first planted them:

Here is a picture of turkey enjoying the fruit:

Here is a tree where you can see the fruit. Note that it is not ripe as it turns bright red when ripe:

Jack,

I am looking to recover some of the cost of what I do. The 1st Rule for me will be to remain a one-person operation. Had some real storm damage this spring, removed two trees, got a new roof on my house but didn't do that on the garage. I set that $$ toward a new shop. As I told Milton when he visited back in early April, they call me killer when we talk about grafting. So I am not including any grafting in my plans. I am going to make an effort to get past killing things when I attempt to graft but so far it has been no failure.

I have given 100s of tree away each year and in 2024 I intend to sell some trees. Some will be 1st year trees; others will be 2nd year trees. I am assuming the deer hit the tigertooth Jujube tree like the turkeys do.

I am Zone 7a and my growing environment would be much like yours. Thanks for the feedback.

wbpdeer

 

[yoderjac]

Jack,

I am looking to recover some of the cost of what I do. The 1st Rule for me will be to remain a one-person operation. Had some real storm damage this spring, removed two trees, got a new roof on my house but didn't do that on the garage. I set that $$ toward a new shop. As I told Milton when he visited back in early April, they call me killer when we talk about grafting. So I am not including any grafting in my plans. I am going to make an effort to get past killing things when I attempt to graft but so far it has been no failure.

I have given 100s of tree away each year and in 2024 I intend to sell some trees. Some will be 1st year trees; others will be 2nd year trees. I am assuming the deer hit the tigertooth Jujube tree like the turkeys do.

I am Zone 7a and my growing environment would be much like yours. Thanks for the feedback.

wbpdeer

Wayne,

I wasn't thinking of you grafting. I was simply thinking that if you keep some persimmons to maturity with known drop times, you could simply clip off scions each winter, store them, and sell them to folks with native persimmons. I'm a so-so grafter at best, but bark grafting persimmons worked well for me, I traded scions with folks from all over and ended up with trees that drop at different times. I'll bet there are other folks like me that have native persimmons growing but would like to have trees that drop at other times.

As for the jujube, yes, deer seem to like them. They are very high in sugar when they mature and dry out.

 

[wbpdeer]

I am 70 years old and have learned to take things one year at a time. Your persimmon model requires years that i may have, then again ....

wbpdeer

 

[yoderjac]

I am 70 years old and have learned to take things one year at a time. Your persimmon model requires years that i may have, then again ....

wbpdeer

valid point. I wasn't sure if you already had mature persimmons.

 

[wbpdeer]

I had some things in place that fell victim to a bush hog that someone else owns. Had a few head shaking screw ups that set my efforts back. Also, when I suffered a mild heart attack, I was off the farm for about 2 years not in a position to move things forward.

There was a professional mulcher hired that improved our habitat but cost me a few habitat resources. Overall, it was a step in the right direction.

Personally, I am too sentimental when I plant a tree that i grew from seed. Just about kills me to cut it down. Brushpile has all kinds of trees he is removing to release a better tree. He started with a pasture and created a nice habitat oasis. I have an AC in my side yard that is about 10 feet tall that lost it two sister trees that I am going to cut down because it is shading out my best DCO. Truth is I am a year later than should be cutting it down. My DCO are putting the nuts out and I treat them better than anything on my ground.

wbpdeer

 

[Fishman]

I am going to suggest that you diversify and not just grow trees. You can sell the seeds of the trees you have listed (except mulberry and elderberry) for a pretty penny. Go to Sheffield's Seed Company or F.W. Schumacher and look at the prices for a pound of seed. Right now might not be a true representative price because it is off season, but most of the species you have listed sell for over $15 per pound. There are plenty of people on this site, other sites, and Facebook that love to grow their own trees, but don't have seeds. It will take work to process the seeds, but you don't have to worry about a late freeze, a drought, a fungal outbreak, insects, or anything else that might affect your seedlings during the year you are growing them. It is also easier to ship acorns than live seedlings. Not shipping seedlings is going to limit your customer base. You already have plenty of experience shipping chestnuts.

I think you have a good list. You might want to add Allegheny chinquapin if you have access to seeds. I wish you look with your endeavor.

 

[KSQ2]

I would buy chestnut seeds from you or Jack either one in a heartbeat Wayne!

 

[wbpdeer]

Thanks for the feedback folks. Fishman, I have shipped out over 22,000 chinese chestnuts since my first box in 2014. To be honest it got to be a job but I was just recovering postage on all of those transactions. I have identified 2 excellent trees on other property and four of my five trees at my house are excellent. I am making a commitment on expanding my DCO efforts.

Thanks K2Q2 - shipping chestnuts made me plenty of friends. I am going tomorrow morning to pay off a large storage building that will allow me to use it for awhile as I transition thru tearing down my garage so i can build my new shop. My grandson is going 50/50 on this storage building as he will be storing furniture in it for his new home he will build. Kid is 21 years and has flat dobe socked away the $$ to finance a nice home build.

So in 2014 I am gonna work on reclaiming some of my cost of this hobby. I will likely teach some classes for youth hunters to learn how to grow wildlife trees. Set them up with good seeds and show them in a hands on how to class. Set it up so they pay a small fee but get trees out of it but they grow with an adult as their mentor that they know. I have a person in Arkansas that is a market farmer that has been successful with how to classes just for garden stuff whereas I will wildlife stuff.

I lost my AC group in my yard and the ones on the farm are for my deer. So not every effort crosses the goal line. About 9 years ago I was a persimmon growing fool, my first big project. I lacked the planting skills I needed at that time. Now I am a good planter, but my age is working against me IMO. Had a local friend to tell me to gift trees by showing the young people how to plant properly in my farm and then gift them the seedlings to go plant on their farm. It maybe that I kick the tires on that approach. If a get 3 plant on me, I will gift you 8 or 9 good seedlings you can plant. Sounds like it may have potential, especially if it was group planting.

Feedback on that plan would be welcome - thumbs up or thumbs down. You folks have the same itch as me for the most part. Habitat matters to us.

wbpdeer

 

[wbpdeer]

valid point. I wasn't sure if you already had mature persimmons.

Jack, I remember that topnotch persimmon tree (did yal call it Charlie) that the dozier operation bulldozed down in a habitat improvement. Unless my mind is tricking me, you had a nice photo of that persimmon tree. Well none of my persimmon were anything special but they suffered similar tragic endings.

Tell me the story again if my recall is off.

 

[KSQ2]

Thanks for the feedback folks. Fishman, I have shipped out over 22,000 chinese chestnuts since my first box in 2014. To be honest it got to be a job but I was just recovering postage on all of those transactions. I have identified 2 excellent trees on other property and four of my five trees at my house are excellent. I am making a commitment on expanding my DCO efforts.

Thanks K2Q2 - shipping chestnuts made me plenty of friends. I am going tomorrow morning to pay off a large storage building that will allow me to use it for awhile as I transition thru tearing down my garage so i can build my new shop. My grandson is going 50/50 on this storage building as he will be storing furniture in it for his new home he will build. Kid is 21 years and has flat dobe socked away the $$ to finance a nice home build.

So in 2014 I am gonna work on reclaiming some of my cost of this hobby. I will likely teach some classes for youth hunters to learn how to grow wildlife trees. Set them up with good seeds and show them in a hands on how to class. Set it up so they pay a small fee but get trees out of it but they grow with an adult as their mentor that they know. I have a person in Arkansas that is a market farmer that has been successful with how to classes just for garden stuff whereas I will wildlife stuff.

I lost my AC group in my yard and the ones on the farm are for my deer. So not every effort crosses the goal line. About 9 years ago I was a persimmon growing fool, my first big project. I lacked the planting skills I needed at that time. Now I am a good planter, but my age is working against me IMO. Had a local friend to tell me to gift trees by showing the young people how to plant properly in my farm and then gift them the seedlings to go plant on their farm. It maybe that I kick the tires on that approach. If a get 3 plant on me, I will gift you 8 or 9 good seedlings you can plant. Sounds like it may have potential, especially if it was group planting.

Feedback on that plan would be welcome - thumbs up or thumbs down. You folks have the same itch as me for the most part. Habitat matters to us.

wbpdeer

Wayne, that is a very generous offer, if I understand you correctly. I would rather purchase seedlings from you though, I would like to support your new possible venture.

 

[Native Hunter]

Wayne, I can't add much to your plans but wish you the best in your endeavors. You might also consider growing and selling deer shrubs at some point. You could do rooted ones or unrooted cuttings. You might even sell seeds from those. I now have elderberry, arrowwood viburnum and grey dogwood established very well in my place. I'm trying to get red osier dogwood going by planting small, rooted ones and protecting with cages until they reach maturity. That is pretty much how I got the others going, and then the birds helped me out after that. Good luck with everything.

 

[yoderjac]

Jack, I remember that topnotch persimmon tree (did yal call it Charlie) that the dozier operation bulldozed down in a habitat improvement. Unless my mind is tricking me, you had a nice photo of that persimmon tree. Well none of my persimmon were anything special but they suffered similar tragic endings.

Tell me the story again if my recall is off.

Wayne,

You got the story right. It was a native female growing on our place. It did fall to a misunderstanding with the dozer operator. Fortunately, I got into persimmon grafting a few years before that. My first persimmon bark grafting project used scions from "Charlie's Persimmon". So, Charlie's legacy lives on.

One final negative thought I had on persimmons is this. If you don't plan to do any grafting of seedlings, persimmons loose about 1/2 their value. Since only female trees produce fruit, and we can't tell if a tree is male or female as a seedling, if I wanted to buy persimmon seedlings, I would probably pay less for them if I know half of them won't produce fruit if I don't graft them. There are lots of state nurseries that sell small persimmon seedlings cheap. So I'm now wondering if it is worth your time to grow them to sell without grafting.

Just a thought.

 

[wbpdeer]

Jack

I remember reading the persimmon story, at that time thinking I hope I don't lose trees that way. What goes around comes around. Yep, it happened to me too. I think you are spot on about the value of ungrafted persimmon trees.

But I look at it this way, if a person comes to me to get some habitat trees going on their place, they will likely bite on the persimmon being included. Guys like you, me, Native, Brushpile, Milton, etc. we are 100% motivated and knowledgeable. What others charge will have a direct bearing on where I set a price point at. I have a good nursery here in town that may have grafted persimmon at times, but not always. The house boom in my area has all these nursery carry inventory for homes and front yards.

Thanks for thinking this topic thru Jack.

 

[wbpdeer]

Wayne, I can't add much to your plans but wish you the best in your endeavors. You might also consider growing and selling deer shrubs at some point. You could do rooted ones or unrooted cuttings. You might even sell seeds from those. I now have elderberry, arrowwood viburnum and grey dogwood established very well in my place. I'm trying to get red osier dogwood going by planting small, rooted ones and protecting with cages until they reach maturity. That is pretty much how I got the others going, and then the birds helped me out after that. Good luck with everything.

The first time I really communicated much with Brushpile, he clued me in on Ninebark. Had my doubts about what I was hearing cause in Tennessee where I hunted, I had never heard of it. I got some and planted them in a line to establish a visual barrior with a designed gap to funnel the deer through. I planted other stuff but the Ninebark was the most successful planting of that year. The times I have been on Brushpile's place he wears a guy out - a real time habitat lab quiz. What is this - what is that. Yep, I have had that humble pie. His place is a perfect example of what can be done inspite of drout for an extended period of time. His little pond was maxied out.

Native I will include either a heat bed or a heat table in the new workshop for cuttings and germination. Which means I will kill a bunch of stuff as I learn what's what. It will have an automated mister, so I don't lose efforts because I failed to stay on schedule. I have been studying what successful people do on YouTube.

For those of you that don't know, Native Hunter's farm is as good of a habitat oasis as you will find. His fruit trees are as good as you will find IMO.

wbpdeer

 

[yoderjac]

Jack

I remember reading the persimmon story, at that time thinking I hope I don't lose trees that way. What goes around comes around. Yep, it happened to me too. I think you are spot on about the value of ungrafted persimmon trees.

But I look at it this way, if a person comes to me to get some habitat trees going on their place, they will likely bite on the persimmon being included. Guys like you, me, Native, Brushpile, Milton, etc. we are 100% motivated and knowledgeable. What others charge will have a direct bearing on where I set a price point at. I have a good nursery here in town that may have grafted persimmon at times, but not always. The house boom in my area has all these nursery carry inventory for homes and front yards.

Thanks for thinking this topic thru Jack.

Wayne,

You may have folks locally that would be interested in indeterminate persimmon seedlings to plant and graft. Certainly rootmaker grown trees will give them a substantial head-start over state nursery bare root seedlings. Folks that buy indeterminate persimmons from state nurseries typically plant them and eventually graft them. I'm sure they would pay a bit more for a tree with a rootmaker root system.

The thought I had was this. It probably takes about the same amount of work and cost for you to grow a persimmon as it does any other tree like a chestnut. If you can get significantly more selling a chestnut (or other tree) than a persimmon, they may not be worth it. On the other hand, if you could graft them to female, they would be worth as much or more than other trees.

So, if your personal grafting skills need improvement, what if you found someone to help with the grafting. Maybe you find a youngster you want to mentor and send him to a grafting class at a local orchard. Most of them are focused on apples, but I found that for grafting seedlings, the techniques are pretty much the same. My cambium alignment type grafting skills are modest at best. I got OK success with apples but not great. At one point I bought a cheap Chinese knockoff grafting tool:

It actually worked quite well for grafting persimmon seedlings as well as apple rootstock. It creates a V-type graft. I grafted my persimmon seedling the second growing season in 1 or 3 gal RB2s

With the tool, it was pretty easy.

Just a thought...

 

[wbpdeer]

Jack,

Reading your post, I get the idea you would buy that grafting tool again or at least it worked on some seedlings just fine - persimmon being one I would / could improve with the right scions.

So a person growing persimmon from seed in the fall of 2023 / winter 2024, when does he get to graft them. Not being an experienced grafter, I think February / March of 2025.

Got an idea where you acquired that grafting tool? Would you part with it?

wbpdeer

 

[yoderjac]

Wayne,

Most of my persimmon experience is with field grafting my native persimmons on the farm. One year I did grow a bunch from seed. I got my seed from Cliff England at England Nurseries. He is a great persimmon resource. It was an afterthought for me. I ordered a 1/4 lb of seed from him in the spring. Since he had finished his spring planting and planting time was getting too late to plant, he sent me over a pound of seed. Cliff did all of the seed scarification and any overwintering of the seed. I just planted it.

I took an old tub and hung some shelving material from lowes on it to start seed. I cut the bottoms out of baking tins, I used mesh flats, and everything else I could think of:

When persimmons start, they lift the seed out of the medium and then the leaves come out of the seed. As soon as the seed was lifted, I used a plastic fork to lift out the roots and put them in 18s:

So, I got a late start in the spring starting them outdoors. They had a much shorter growing season than my chestnuts and other trees started in the winter. I transplanted my best persimmon seedlings from 18s to 1 gal RB2s in the summer. I had many hundreds of persimmons in 18s. I used most of these to experiment planting directly from 18s in the field. None of them survived.

I overwintered all the persimmons that had been transplanted to 1 gal RB2s. Late winter, early spring, still indoors, I grafted some of them. I used a variety of grafting techniques. I had an OK success rate, but not great. I gave them all an early start under lights and then moved them to my deck. The ones that I did not graft that year, I over wintered and grafted the next year. They were larger in diameter and I had a much higher success rate.

Keep this in mind. While you know American persimmons are the way to go for deer because they are astringent and fall from the tree unlike Kaki or Lotus, I was receiving reports of a hybrid called "Nikita's Gift" that some were reporting fell from the tree. Most of my grafted trees used this hybrid scion, so that could also be a factor in failed grafts. At any rate, I have a number of these Nakita's Gift trees growing at the farm producing very large persimmons. Mine don't fall from the tree when ripe. Some hang low enough for deer to get. Other wildlife gets most of them. Since there is no standard for persimmon names, it could be that there are different varieties that different people call Nikita's Gift, so maybe others do fall from the tree when ripe, but mine don't.

As for the grafting tool, I think I purchased mine on Amazon for $20-$30 bucks if I recall correctly. The design they stole is a good one, but the Chinese production is poor quality. It took some fiddling around with and slight mods, but it works great for me. Here is a link to another forum that inspired me to buy the tool: Grafting Tool Thread Link. This thread has lots of good info on some slightly different versions of the same design and mods guys made to it. If I was going to do this as a commercial venture, I'd probably pay more and buy a better quality version of this tool. For the hobbyist with time to mess around, it is fine. The key is cambium alignment. If you choose scions that match well in size it is pretty easy to get cambium alignment. It is very easy with apples and pears with a wider cambium layer. Persimmons are only slightly more difficult to get good alignment.

Hope this helps.

 

[wbpdeer]

Wayne,

Most of my persimmon experience is with field grafting my native persimmons on the farm. One year I did grow a bunch from seed. I got my seed from Cliff England at England Nurseries. He is a great persimmon resource. It was an afterthought for me. I ordered a 1/4 lb of seed from him in the spring. Since he had finished his spring planting and planting time was getting too late to plant, he sent me over a pound of seed. Cliff did all of the seed scarification and any overwintering of the seed. I just planted it.

I took an old tub and hung some shelving material from lowes on it to start seed. I cut the bottoms out of baking tins, I used mesh flats, and everything else I could think of:

When persimmons start, they lift the seed out of the medium and then the leaves come out of the seed. As soon as the seed was lifted, I used a plastic fork to lift out the roots and put them in 18s:

So, I got a late start in the spring starting them outdoors. They had a much shorter growing season than my chestnuts and other trees started in the winter. I transplanted my best persimmon seedlings from 18s to 1 gal RB2s in the summer. I had many hundreds of persimmons in 18s. I used most of these to experiment planting directly from 18s in the field. None of them survived.

I overwintered all the persimmons that had been transplanted to 1 gal RB2s. Late winter, early spring, still indoors, I grafted some of them. I used a variety of grafting techniques. I had an OK success rate, but not great. I gave them all an early start under lights and then moved them to my deck. The ones that I did not graft that year, I over wintered and grafted the next year. They were larger in diameter and I had a much higher success rate.

Keep this in mind. While you know American persimmons are the way to go for deer because they are astringent and fall from the tree unlike Kaki or Lotus, I was receiving reports of a hybrid called "Nikita's Gift" that some were reporting fell from the tree. Most of my grafted trees used this hybrid scion, so that could also be a factor in failed grafts. At any rate, I have a number of these Nakita's Gift trees growing at the farm producing very large persimmons. Mine don't fall from the tree when ripe. Some hang low enough for deer to get. Other wildlife gets most of them. Since there is no standard for persimmon names, it could be that there are different varieties that different people call Nikita's Gift, so maybe others do fall from the tree when ripe, but mine don't.

As for the grafting tool, I think I purchased mine on Amazon for $20-$30 bucks if I recall correctly. The design they stole is a good one, but the Chinese production is poor quality. It took some fiddling around with and slight mods, but it works great for me. Here is a link to another forum that inspired me to buy the tool: Grafting Tool Thread Link. This thread has lots of good info on some slightly different versions of the same design and mods guys made to it. If I was going to do this as a commercial venture, I'd probably pay more and buy a better quality version of this tool. For the hobbyist with time to mess around, it is fine. The key is cambium alignment. If you choose scions that match well in size it is pretty easy to get cambium alignment. It is very easy with apples and pears with a wider cambium layer. Persimmons are only slightly more difficult to get good alignment.

Hope this helps.

Hey Jack,

Very helpful. I read the message 3 times about from 18s to the field - nothing made it. Kind of knowledge that helps immensely. Thanks.

So your transition was - 1. Specialty Tube, 2. To Rootmaker 18 next, 3. One Gallon RB2 next 4. Graft with Female Scion 5. To field or to sell if I am thinking for my possible path.

Additional benefit, your graft tool was good for apples and pears (both more forgiving regarding cambium alignment.

In the past I had purchased persimmon seeds from Cliff England one time. I got sidetracked after one year with the persimmon.

I am going to try that Grafting Tool Thread Link. As always you are a wealth of knowledge - I be most grateful here in Portland, TN.

Question 4 Jack
Are you able to buy replacement cutter blades in local hardware / big box stores for your grafting tool? I have narrowed down to a few on Amazon that are like yours but wonder about when the cutters gets dull.

wbpdeer