Persimmons...how do I love thee...let me count the ways.....

Yes, you can topwork them, and the success rate has been high for me and other members of this forum. Late droppers are more common here than early droppers, but we have both. Drop times for me range from mid August to February.

The first year I topworked trees I didn't brace the grafts, and lost several to strong winds as they grew tall later in the year. After that I started bracing them the first year with cane poles and duct tape. Since that time I have never lost a graft, so the bracing is important - at least it has been for me. This is also true of apple and pear - not just persimmon. I leave the bracing the entire year and remove it the next spring. By that time the grafts have hardened well and can take the wind.

Right now my persimmon inventory is roughly as follows:
  • 18 trees producing fruit. A combination of seedlings I set and native volunteer trees.
  • 12 trees successfully topworked to females in the last 2 years.
  • 10 more relatively small seedling trees which I set, that have not revealed their sex yet. I can go ahead and topwork or wait and see. Will probably wait and see.
  • 7 grafted female trees I have bought and set out. Growing very slowly.
  • Many more males (large and small) scattered around at different places. Most of these I will just leave alone. This area is a persimmon mecca.
Are all your persimmon "native" trees or are they different varieties? I have seen some sold/offered that seem to be different varieties and the like and I am not so sure about those.....
 
There are also some that have different numbers of chromosomes (60 and 90). I do not believe they are compatible with each other.
 
There are also some that have different numbers of chromosomes (60 and 90). I do not believe they are compatible with each other.

And in the deep south they have 30 chromosome persimmons. Much wrong information has been spread on this subject in the past....a lot like the FAKE NEWS of today.………;)

I mentioned earlier in this thread that persimmons can set fruit parthenocarpically. No one seems to have noticed that or followed up on it.

Example of this: a 90 C female persimmon set in a place where no 90 C males exist to pollinate them will still set fruit. BUT....the fruit will be seedless. So all of the persimmon pollination hype is of no importance to me.

If I am wrong about this, then the University of KY College of Agriculture is also wrong, and I don't believe that they are wrong on this subject. See Link below:

http://www.uky.edu/ccd/production/crop-resources/fruit/persimmons

Happy fruiting!!!
 
And in the deep south they have 30 chromosome persimmons. Much wrong information has been spread on this subject in the past....a lot like the FAKE NEWS of today.………;)

I mentioned earlier in this thread that persimmons can set fruit parthenocarpically. No one seems to have noticed that or followed up on it.

Example of this: a 90 C female persimmon set in a place where no 90 C males exist to pollinate them will still set fruit. BUT....the fruit will be seedless. So all of the persimmon pollination hype is of no importance to me.

If I am wrong about this, then the University of KY College of Agriculture is also wrong, and I don't believe that they are wrong on this subject. See Link below:

http://www.uky.edu/ccd/production/crop-resources/fruit/persimmons

Happy fruiting!!!

Well.. learn something new every day. I did notice the word parthnocarpically in your previous post but didn't know what it meant.
 
Are all your persimmon "native" trees or are they different varieties? I have seen some sold/offered that seem to be different varieties and the like and I am not so sure about those.....

I have both (1) native trees and (2) some seedling trees that came from the NWTF fruiting now. Some of the topworking I have done is with named cultivars of American Persimmon. So, I have a broad mix of lots of genes.

I even have one seedling that I believe to be a cross between an Asian and American. It shows characteristics of both and drops before anything else.

Unlike some fruit trees - It's hard to go wrong with any persimmon that produces fruit. Thus....the love affair.
 
My biggest complaint about Asian varieties is that a lot of them (not all) but a lot of them hang on to the fruit and it will literally rot on the tree before falling off. I just always assumed this was a desirable trait for farming as you wouldn't necessarily want the fruit to fall if it were for human consumption.
 
My biggest complaint about Asian varieties is that a lot of them (not all) but a lot of them hang on to the fruit and it will literally rot on the tree before falling off. I just always assumed this was a desirable trait for farming as you wouldn't necessarily want the fruit to fall if it were for human consumption.

I agree. I only have one Asian tree - just as a novelty.
 
I have a lot of persimmon trees - but at a wild guess - I would say less than 10% are female - probably much less than 10%. Another good thing about persimmon trees is they can grow in high pH soils - along with honey locust and cedar. Persimmons, at least around my place, provide very little food for deer. Judging by coon droppings around my place right now - the persimmons are providing the bulk of their diet. I have seen multiple coons in persimmon trees many times. It is a rarity to see a persimmon fruit on the ground here. I think the coons eat them before they ever drop.

Has anyone else noticed a great disparity between the number of producing and non-producing trees?
Coons in persimmons you say? LOL.
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That’s awesome. Lol.. I need to put a camera on my little grove of trees.


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Reply to several thoughts above
1. Yes raccoons LOVE persimmons. But it has also been called deer candy
2. raccoons do a better job of planting persimmons than any other method
3. I agree with mattpatt that it seems my female to male ratio about 10% to 90%. deer population is the opposite
4. Native used that big word to throw us off. He has his means of pollination, and I will just leave it there.
5. Trees in my area are loaded, but all these would be the same variety. Always been a good place to hunt for opening day Bow season, October 15
6. Yes they can be grown from seed and planted. This tree was once a seed in my greenhouse. Planted January 2013 and first persimmons this year. One thing I did notice was how big and healthy the fruit compared to other older trees.
 
So.......this is what I know about persimmons. As a boy the ripe ones were very good to eat and it was damn funny to talk a city boy into biting into a green one.

We had them everywhere then, but now you can't hardly find them. I've located a few trees that are loaded down and would like to know the process to grow seedlings if I get them in the next couple of weeks. I can think of several places that I would like to plant them.
 
Made a trip around the place yesterday and somewhat kept up with the persimmon trees I saw. Fifty-seven with 3” dbh or larger - two with fruit - the rest with none. Coincidenty - the two with fruit are growing thirty feet apart.
 
So.......this is what I know about persimmons. As a boy the ripe ones were very good to eat and it was damn funny to talk a city boy into biting into a green one.

We had them everywhere then, but now you can't hardly find them. I've located a few trees that are loaded down and would like to know the process to grow seedlings if I get them in the next couple of weeks. I can think of several places that I would like to plant them.


Ask and you shall receive:

https://homeguides.sfgate.com/grow-persimmons-seed-45681.html
 
Yesterday, I took a hedge trimmer attachment on a Stihl and cut down some NWSGs to about knee height along a fence row that I can see from my blind. I always see deer going into this area, but this is the first year I have taken the time to clean out where I can see into that spot. It didn't take but about 30 minutes, and I'm now able to see an 80 yard remote strip where deer travel.

After cutting the grass I got to looking for a tree to make a mock scrape later on. Low and behold there was a persimmon tree that I had never seen before. The tree is about 4 inches DBH and 20 feet high. It was in horrible conditions - being shaded by a big sassafras on one side and a cedar on the other. It also was touching the cedar at the ground line, and had 3 pieces of barbed wire buried into it.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I looked closer and saw fruit. It wasn't what I would call loaded, but the persimmons were the largest I had seen this year and were green as your lawn. The color tells me that this one will be a very late dropper.

I clipped off the barbed wire on both sides. I had my saw in the truck to open up around the tree but decided to wait until next spring. I was worn out from other work that day and thought it would be a better spring job that could wait. My guess is that once this tree starts getting some sunlight, it will be a prolific producer.

In this fence row that makes 4 persimmon trees I have found over the years, and 3 of them are females. If I count all of the native trees I have found on the whole place, I estimate between 50% and 75% are females. Of the ones I set as seedlings from the NWTF years ago, I can't tell all of them yet, but it looks like they will go over 50% too.
 
I have both (1) native trees and (2) some seedling trees that came from the NWTF fruiting now. Some of the topworking I have done is with named cultivars of American Persimmon. So, I have a broad mix of lots of genes.

I even have one seedling that I believe to be a cross between an Asian and American. It shows characteristics of both and drops before anything else.

Unlike some fruit trees - It's hard to go wrong with any persimmon that produces fruit. Thus....the love affair.

Who sells named cultivars of american persimmons?

thanks

bill
 
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