American Persimmon and Southern Crabapple winter plantings

Charlieyca

Active Member
Just ordered 100 each bare root seedlings of both American Persimmon and Crabapple through NC forest service with pickup in december. Plan to plant on the northern side of main access road, down one side of each food plots, and create one area that is an orchard. Should be able to get all 200 planted in one day between me and the old man on the dibble bar. Would you trim either the root or stem end of either tree before planting? Spacing both of them about 10 ft apart, mark with landscape flags and have ordered 50 tree tubes to split between the trees. (would like to tube all 200, but not in the funds). I know persimmons may all be male, but i am prepared to try grafting once they mature. Anything important or specific to these 2 species I am forgetting?
 
I wonder myself about mass planting persimmons. Specifically if they should be spaced close together for orchard and then thin the 50% male trees out as they mature and can be identified as male or female.
 
As far as trimming it just depends on the size of the seedlings. I planted several sawtooths and persimmons from our state nursery and I did no pruning. I wouldn't prune any roots but if you feel like the top growth far exceeds the root system then I'd prune off the top 1/3.

todd
 
So root should be equal to stem? What success rate should I expect grafting male to female as a grafting Virgin? Is there enough failure that I should plant seedlings more densely to make up for failures

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Your area might be different but around here I don't have to tube persimmons. Deer don't bother them for some reason.


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So root should be equal to stem? What success rate should I expect grafting male to female as a grafting Virgin? Is there enough failure that I should plant seedlings more densely to make up for failures

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No, because if the graft fails then you can just regraft again the following year. I've never had it kill the entire tree. When I planted 50 persimmon seedlings 3 years ago I only tubed half of them. It was a very very dry spring. Over 90% of the tubed trees survives and over 90% of the non-tubed trees died.
 
So you would suggest tubing them to keep the moisture close to the tree? Would I be better off mulching them with landscape fabric. The way our weather has been the last 18 months they may float away.
 
Hurricane matthew wiped out our forest service trees, so I had to change directions. Going with a mix of 25 each persimmon, wahoo, plum, crabapple, bur oak, chinquapin oak, swo, from MDC. Now to decide which ones to tube, and which ones fend for themselves.
 
Dogdoc, were your persimmons heavily browsed?
no--i saw no foraging on the native persimmon seedlings. A few did get girdled from rodents though. Better to protect if you can but much higher chance for your crabs and plums to get browsed compared to persimmons
 
Thanks, i was gonna share mybtree list and see which ones are the most likely to get browsed, or simply split up tubes among each species

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Thanks, i was gonna share mybtree list and see which ones are the most likely to get browsed, or simply split up tubes among each species

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i can just about guarantee ya the crabs and plums will have 100% failure without protection!
 
Thanks, those 2 gets tubes, i was thinking the wahoo was high on browse list as well.

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I have done it both ways and as dogdoc said survival is the biggest advantage of a tube on a persimmons. I did a little grove (25 trees) of them at 8ft apart as I plan on thinning to the better trees as we go. What I can tell you is if you will feed them with chicken poop or something like it an 18in tree will be a 5ft tree in one year. I haven't had a persimmon get lanky on me yet in a tube either like some trees. At 5ft tall the next year equals a solid canopy forming above all weeds and that much closer to the goal of fruit production. Most will say a persimmons doesn't need to be fertilized, my thought is my garden doesn't either but who wants to show off tiny tomato plants? Time is against all of us, I want to see the fruit of my work. Good Luck!
 
Sounds like a plan, may plant all the small trees at 4 paces and the oaks at 10

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With limited tubes, dont protect the persimmons. Or, just protect a few of your best persimmons. I have some persimmon browsing around here, but crabapples and plums will not stand much of a chance without protection.
 
My list of trees to be planted are roughleaf dogwood, red mulberry, swo, bur oak, chinkapin oak, sawtooth oak, wahoo, persimmon, plum. I guess i left off crabapples for next years NC forest service order. So plum gets tubes, I can tube 3 others! which ones would you pick? moderate deer density, zone 7B. My thoughts are to tube mulberry and sawtooth and save 25 tubes for trees planted next to food plots.
 
even if you put up a small 4ft welded wire cage around the oaks it will help keep them from getting rubbed next year by the bucks. Mulberry is a must. They won't stand a chance as they are heavily browsed. I don't really see any browsing on any of the oaks I plant but they sure grow a lot better and have better survival rates. Sawtooths really do well with tubing and grow very fast. I don't have any dogwoods but I do believe they are heavily browsed. Don't know anything about wahoo. Maybe divide some of the tubes with your different oaks just get some different varieties the best chance of making it.
 
I believe the oaks native to this area (but absent from my farm) im going to skip tubes. I will focus the tubes on the heavily browsed shrubs and fruit trees and the oaks that may appear exotic to my deer.
 
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