Charlie's Persimmon - Transfered from QDMA forum

[yoderjac]

For those I sent scions to, here is a picture of Charlie's Persimmon. Most of the persimmons are green and hard to see, but a few have ripened early and fallen. I ate my first one of the season today and it was quite tasty. I will try to keep an eye on the tree and let you all know when the drop period ends.
I also fought the yellow jackets and picked up all the persimmons I could find on the ground. I plan to extract and stratify these seeds and see if they perform any differently than the northern strain seeds I bought from England's.
On another note, I continue to be amazed at how hard it is to identify persimmon trees. We have some other tree (don't know what it is) that looks very similar to a persimmon. I look hard every spring at first leaf-out and when they go into bloom because these stages seem to be unique.
Well, to day I found another young female persimmon bearing heavily. This has to be the first year it produced. It is in an obvious enough place that I'm sure I would have seen if it had fruited before. I'm shocked I did not see the bloom this spring! At any rate, I flagged it and will release it further this winter.
Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I cant tell black gum from persimmon when theyre young. Thats an awesome tree must get plenty of sun.

Beautiful persimmon tree you have there. I am always excited to find new ones around the property. You are right that they seem to hide for several years and then just show up with fruit.
My have just begun to drop. I was tempted to take a few pictures of some "ready to plant" seeds in case anyone wanted a few = some seeds that have been thru the "raccoon process". I think they like the persimmons even more than the deer.

 

[yoderjac]

That tree had good sun through most of it's life span but now has great sun after a recent logging operation. It used to sit on the east side of a pipeline ROW and had pines to the west. It is now has a logging deck being converted to a food plot on the north and west sides of it and no pines to the south for about 30 yards.
You guys are also right about the coons. They are primarily what drive me to astringent American persimmons because they climb.
I'm fortunate that most of my native persimmon rootstock is along that pipeline (probably because of the sun). This means they start with good sun when that are young and things can get even better when I fully release them.

 

[yoderjac]

Yoder...That tree looks loaded! Pretty sure I wrote you before about learning this process of grafting persimmons. We have one on the edge of a small beaver pond that breaks limbs every year due to fruit. Beavers have now risen the pond to where the base of the tree is covered in water year round so I know I'm prolly gonna lose this tree. I want to take some scions (think that's what you call them) from this tree this winter and learn how to graft onto non-producing trees.
Other funny thing about persimmons is that for us, it takes years to determine the sex. We have one in our bean field that is at least 4 inches dbh and just bore fruit for the 1st time this year. Had planned on cutting it down but so glad I didn't!

CCC,
A great place to start is the Sex Change Operation thread on these forums. You don't need to wait for a tree to produce fruit to tell the sex, but it needs to be old enough to produce blossoms and you need to catch the tree in bloom.
Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

looks good Jack. I have about 4 scions from that tree doing really good right now. I have at least 30 more trees that I need to graft next year. It seems I find clumps of males and then clumps of females.
todd

One thing for sure, I've never seen a persimmon tree in bloom...... till I looked. They are sneaky for sure.
That's a magnificent tree that any whitetail guy would want.

 

[yoderjac]

What type of root stock is being used for the grafting?

The best bang for the buck is to find native persimmons already growing on your property and then cutting them down and bark grafting them. You can use either mail or female rootstock. Because the root systems are well established already and well adapted to your area since they grew there, you can get your first persimmons as early as the third leaf after bark grafting.
In my case, I'm in central VA. Our native persimmons are the southern strain (60 chromosomes) verses the larger leafed northern strain that is 90 chromosomes. You can graft between strains with no issues.
Of course, the downside of using natively growing persimmons as root stock is that you have to take what you get. You can't place the tree where you want it. And eventually, you will run out of root stock if you even have native persimmons on your property.
So, for future rootstock, I'm growing trees from seed. Persimmons are not true to seed which means trees grown from seed may have characteristics very different from the tree the seed came from. This is one reason we graft. A grafted tree will have the same genetic characteristics as the parent tree from which the scion was extracted.
I will bench graft some of these using a whip & tongue graft while they are still containerized but this is largely for the learning experience. By far the highest success I have is with bark grafting. So most of the persimmons I start from seed will be planted in the field. I'll wait until they hit about 1" in diameter before cutting them down and bark grafting them.
I'm going two routes with persimmon rootstock. First, I ordered a bunch of seed last year from England's orchard. They are all the 90 chromosome northern strains. The second route I'm taking is to simply extract seeds from my local native persimmons and stratify them myself before planting them. In fact, that is what I did today. I ate the persimmons I picked up off the ground and saved the seeds. I put them in a zip lock bag with a handful of long fiber sphagnum and placed it in the vegetable crisper of my fridge. I'll start these under lights this winter.
Here is the sex change thread with pictures for those just getting started: http://www.qdma.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47890
Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks Jack, I didn't know the trees may be different when planted from seed.

Yes, half the genetic material comes from other trees and you don't really know which ones unless you bag the flowers and hand pollinate. So, trees grown from seed may be quite different from the tree you get them from. You might take a seed from a very prolific tree and get a tree that is a feeble producer or the other way around. It is really luck of the draw.
So, if you don't have native trees to graft, your best bet is to start trees from seed and then graft them with scions from trees that have the characteristics you want.
One of the things I'm trying to do is get persimmons that drop fruit starting in September just before our archery season starts in October and continue dropping them well into January. Many folks on this forum are keeping notes on trees they find noting over what period they drop. We all trade scions each winter and then graft away in the spring. This way we can each get some trees with peak drop in Oct, others in Nov, and others in Dec. You can also buy scions for a few dollars form commercial sources but most (but not all) named varieties drop pretty early. Keep in mind that we are all in a variety of zones. We have not yet figured out if or how zone changes affect drop dates for persimmons. We will work this out as we go.
Welcome to the persimmon addiction!
Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

While these great native female trees don't help with my management program since they are located along our entry road right-of-way near some houses, I do have access to them for scion collection.
These pictures were taken Oct 17th:

Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

What are the pros/cons of going with either the 60 or 90 chromosome trees?
I was just about to order some seed of ebay and now you've got me second guessing myself. I planned to graft them in the future so I was under the impression that it didn't matter where the seed came from.

Twig---don't pay for persimmon seeds unless you want a specific variety. If you want some native seeds I can send you plenty for free. If you are planting for wildlife then the Native American Persimmon is what you want.
todd

Twig,
DogDoc is giving good advice. I would recommend you check out Englands Nursery. The seeds will be ready for soil.
You need 90 chromosome in my opinion. I got 1 pound from Cliff England for $20 and I would say it is over 500 seeds. Two years of projects for me.
Jack buys from Cliff as well.
WBP

We've got pockets of small persimmon groves throughout our farm, but one large grove that just happens to be in a drainage that's loaded every year. You can smell the sweet persimmon scent when the wind is right from a hundred yards or more. Kind of a nice reminder every year when you catch that scent of how 'sweet' life is and how blessed you really are.

 

[yoderjac]

What are the pros/cons of going with either the 60 or 90 chromosome trees?
I was just about to order some seed of ebay and now you've got me second guessing myself. I planned to graft them in the future so I was under the impression that it didn't matter where the seed came from.

Twig,
The 60 chromosome persimmon is native to the south east. It has smaller leaves and smaller fruit. The 90 chromosome persimmon, known as the northern strain, is native to the north and west of the Mississippi. Most all of the named varieties are 90 chromosome persimmons.
You can graft between the two different strains with high success rates.
When 60 chromosome persimmons pollinate 90 chromosome persimmons, the fruit seem to develop few seeds and can be seedless.
Given that you are in PA, I would probably opt for the 90 chromosome persimmon as root stock. As DogDoc points out, Cliff England has been a great source for stratified seed if you plan to start the under lights this winter.
I started planting rootstock using 90-chromosome seeds that I got from Cliff even though I'm in Virginia well within the native range of the southern persimmon. I did this simply because I didn't have time to stratify.
This year, I'm stratifying my own seed from my native trees. I want to see if there is a difference in the vigor of the root stock since my native trees are clearly well adapted to both my climate and soils. As DogDoc says, if you are willing to stratify the seed yourself, there are plenty of folks on here ready to trade or give seed.
By the way, I believe there is even a 30 chromosome persimmon in Florida.
Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

When you released Charlie's Persimmon, did you have any issue with it being very spindly? I released the tall one in the picture and only cut the trees on the east side because I was afraid it wasn't able to hold itself up. It had no limbs at all on the west side of the trunk. I thought I would wait till next year to fully release it.

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[yoderjac]

I released Charlie's persimmon slowly over several years. It was growing on the west side of a pipeline ROW. I first removed any trees that had crowns growing into the crown of Charlie as well as any tree, large or small that originated from underneath the crown. That winter, I did a little pruning on Charlie.
The following year, we had a logging operation. A logging deck was created to the north and west of Charlie. We had all the large trees removed between that logging deck and the pipeline ROW except Charlie.
That year, Charlie dropped a lot of persimmons during the summer. I'm sure there was some shock associated with the logging operation.
This year, Charlie has a record persimmon crop.
I have another female persimmon a couple hundred yards north of Charlie along the pipeline ROW. This tree was growing right trough the middle of a large cedar. It was 4" in diameter and I never saw it because of the cedar until one year a branch that stuck into the ROW had a few persimmons.
I first cut down the cedar. The persimmons was both lanky and very misshapen. This tree was located with a cluster of persimmons but the rest were male. I took out any tree that was interfering with the crowns or growing under the crowns of this cluster. They were still protected from the wind on the north, south, and west by mature pines. That winter I did some heavy pruning of the female. It took two years of heavy pruning to get the tree to begin to develop some balance. I cut down the males and grafted them. I won't do any more release on this tree. It gets great morning sun and is shaded in the late afternoon. It does not bear as heavily as Charlie, but I'd rather have a moderate bearing tree than release too much and lose it all together.
Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I appreciate the offer but I wouldn't let you send me any for free. I'd at least have to pay for shipping. ;)
There's a lot of guys selling Diospyros virginiana seeds on eBay for fairly cheap. That's why I inquired. My goal is to start about 50 trees this spring. What's the germination success rate like on these seeds?

I have some persimmons falling now and already seeing some scat on the trails with persimmon seeds in them. I'm going out tomorrow and I will see what I can collect for ya. I had well over 90% germination rate of my seeds last year.
PM me your address
todd

 

[yoderjac]

I'm saddened to report the passing of Charlie's persimmon. After many years of service to the local deer herd, Charlie's persimmon's accolades included both production volume and consistency. Charlie's persimmon's unexpected passing as such a young age shocked all of us. We are all trying to recover from this accidental death.
Charlie's persimmon was survived by 12 confirmed daughters living in the local area along with several other daughters residing in other areas of the country.

....Ok, here is what happened. We got into an NRCS program that includes firebreaks, herbicide application, and controlled burns. The dozer operator who installed our firebreaks finished early and had some extra hours available while his equipment was on site. I asked him to perform a few other tasks performing stump removal around wildlife openings. I explicitly showed him Charlie's persimmon and told him it was in important tree and not to get within 30 yards of it with the dozer to ensure we didn't compress the soil around the roots. He even took a picture of it so he would not forget!
When I inspected the work today, there was no sign of Charlie's persimmon. It will take lots of grafting and quite a few years to replace the persimmon volume during archery season that Charlie's persimmon provided.
Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I'm sorry to hear of Charlie's untimely passing. But thanks to you she will still be raining
Persimmons down across the entire country! Grafting is a wonderful tool for anyone

Well that just sucks. I've got about 4 grafts from her that are thriving from last year's grafts. Hopefully her offspring will perform as good as she did.

Condolences.....