Persimmon?

[yoderjac]

Buckdeer is in the same area as I am. We live about 30 minutes apart, but he does have different soil than I do and some of the stuff I have growing native is not growing native on his place.

Kind of funny about the drop dates being unreliable. I've been shopping at quite a few online nurseries and have figured the one's that advertise "early, mid, and late" were less reliable or less desirable than the one's that get more specific by month. Maybe I'm viewing them opposite of what I should... the "early, mid, and late" are more honest than the "November" guys.

If Buckdeer1 is in the same area with you likely his trees will drop about the same time as yours (provided you've grafted the same scions). However, one year that could be a month early and the next a month later. I don't believe places selling them advertised to drop in a particular month have trees that are more reliable. By the way, only hunters use "drop" in the persimmon world it is "ripen".

When I started looking into persimmons, I had some great sources. I started by getting the Jim Claypool records. I've had conversations with Jerry Lehman, Cliff England, and David Osborn all great persimmon guys in. Jerry took over much of the Claypool work in controlled breading. The goal was to produce a commercially viable product and market. Cliff England has an orchard and does a lot with persimmons and worked a lot with Jerry. David Osborn's article in QW is what got me interested. Most of the "named" varieties were attempts at the commercial market. I say put "named" in quotes because there is no real standardization in naming. For example, when you see names like 100-43s or something like that, they actually refer to the position in the old Claypool orchard of the parent tree. His records show what was crossbred and list all kinds of characteristics that are mostly important to the commercial market, not deer hunters. Many folks selling to deer hunters are now selling the Claypool clones under brand names with "Deer" in the name.

Are these "Deer" persimmons in some way more attractant or better for deer in some way? No. It is marketing. Most of them were not bred for characteristics important to deer (there are not many). They were bred for the commercial market and had some flaw that did not make them suitable. For example, a tree may be a very prolific producer but the persimmons don't taste as good or have black spots on the skin or damage easily in transport or whatever. Deer don't care. As long as the tree produces a lot of persimmons, they can sell these to deer hunters with "deer" in the name at a premium that they could not sell to orchardists.

One more guy who was very influential for me was an old doctor in Mississippi. He was a generation ahead of me and had been grafting hundreds of native persimmons each year on his place. He was very gracious and shared a lot of information with me. He had an entire network of folks across the country watching drop times of their native trees. He was looking for prolific trees with late drop times. He gave me more grafting tips for persimmons than I can count.

The descriptions like "early", mid-season", "late", "very late" probably accurately reflect the precision at which we understand persimmon ripening times.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Catscratch]

I've been seeing references to black spot, taste, and seeds quite a bit on the fruit forums that I've been looking at. Like you said the only traits I care about are production rates and when they "ripen".

I've never grafted anything (no native fruit trees to play on with the exception of Osage Orange and Mulberry). Now that my dad's persimmon trees have turned into a thicket (with many producing trees, and many that don't produce) I should look for a few scions and give it a try. It would be cool to have several different varieties in the same patch.

 

[yoderjac]

Yep, bark grafting is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. The key is timing and pressure, not cambium alignment like other forms of grafting. Wait for leaf-out in the spring so you know sap is running. I like electrical tape because it has some stretch. Check out the sex change operation thread for details with pics.

Thanks,

jack

 

[kfab12]

I checked out one of the websites for persimmons, Chestnut Hill Outdoors, and they advertise grafted female American persimmons. Does that mean that the tree will have fruit and it grafted with a male and female? Does this tree still need a male for pollination. Just learning from all of these post so thanks for all the input.

Ken

 

[yoderjac]

I checked out one of the websites for persimmons, Chestnut Hill Outdoors, and they advertise grafted female American persimmons. Does that mean that the tree will have fruit and it grafted with a male and female? Does this tree still need a male for pollination. Just learning from all of these post so thanks for all the input.

Ken

Persimmons are dioecious meaning that there are male and female trees. Occasionally, you will find a persimmon with both male and female branches. They call these "perfect" trees. In nature, only trees with female flowers will make fruit (female trees or perfect trees). They do need to be pollinated by pollen from a male flower to produce fruit. Persimmons are primarily insect pollinated so the male tree can be quite fall from the female trees unlike say chestnuts which are wind pollinated. If there are native persimmons growing in your general area you likely have male trees growing somewhere and don't need to worry about a pollinator.

When you buy a grafted persimmon, unless otherwise stated, you can assume it is grafted with a female scion. If it is a named variety, it is female (above the graft).

One reason planting seedlings (growing them from seed or planting small inexpensive seedlings from a wildlife agency) and letting them grow to 1" in diameter or so and bark grafting them is a good idea if you are outside the native range of persimmons is that you can easily handle the pollination issue. When you bark graft a persimmon ( I usually do this at chest height), it the large root system will have a lot of energy and you just removed the entire top. Presuming your scion takes, a lot of energy will go into that scion and it will grow very fast, but it can't handle all the energy produced by the large root system. This causes the persimmon to produce new branches below the graft. We call these "water sprouts". We remove all the water sprouts to further force energy into the scion every week or two for the first growing season at least. Many of these rootstock trees will be male. After you are sure the graft has taken, simply select 1 or 2 of the water sprouts just below the graft and let them grow. They will be branched from the original rootstock. When this is a male tree, these branches will produce male flowers. These couple of branches should be able to pollinate all of the other persimmons you are growing.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[kfab12]

Thanks Jack that was very interesting. I hope I remember all this come spring!

 

[Catscratch]

How strong to persimmon graft? We have a lot of wind, some tornado's, and ice once in a while. I would hate to invest into a lot of chest height grafting just to have them blow over with a couple of 50+ mph days.

 

[yoderjac]

How strong to persimmon graft? We have a lot of wind, some tornado's, and ice once in a while. I would hate to invest into a lot of chest height grafting just to have them blow over with a couple of 50+ mph days.

Once the graft is fully healed I'd say they can be similar strength to the tree. When young they can break pretty easily. When I bark graft in the field, I strap a bamboo stake to the rootstock so it extends well above the scion. For the first growing season, I lightly cable tie the scion to the bamboo as it grows. The large root system pushes a lot of vertical growth that first year. I remove the stakes the following spring after the new growth has hardened.

While persimmon is a very hard wood (they make golf clubs out of it), it can be brittle. The biggest risk I've seen of persimmons being broken off by wind is actually when someone finds a native female tree and tries to release it too quickly. When the tree doesn't bend as it grows and stress, it becomes more brittle. So, when a tree is protected by adjoining trees and is suddenly released, it had a greater risk of wind damage. It is generally better to release a found persimmon a little at a time each year so it gets increasing amounts of wind slowly over time.

If you are concerned about wind, I would look more at limiting tree flex in the wind rather than the graft itself. You want to use multiple stakes around the tree with loose connections to the tree allowing it to bend and flex as the wind blows but not to bend so much that it breaks. High winds are another good case for growing trees from seed or planting small seedlings. Trees that develop in windy conditions handle wind better than those transplanted.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Catscratch]

It's done! I ordered 20 bareroot natives from Kansas Forestry Service and a named grafted variety from the local nursery.

The nursery said this particular supplier grows them in air-pruning pots. He also ordered several so that I could take my pick, the rest will become inventory for him. Going to call me when they arrive to come pick one out. Didn't have to pay anything down to order.

 

[yoderjac]

It's done! I ordered 20 bareroot natives from Kansas Forestry Service and a named grafted variety from the local nursery.

The nursery said this particular supplier grows them in air-pruning pots. He also ordered several so that I could take my pick, the rest will become inventory for him. Going to call me when they arrive to come pick one out. Didn't have to pay anything down to order.

Sounds like a great deal!