Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
Right now in my area is a good time to check your persimmon seedlings to determine their gender. It's really easy to tell the difference by the flowers, and this thread will have some pictures.
My thoughts are summed up below:
This is the female flower. Female flowers occur individually on very short stalks. Individual female flowers are just a little bigger than 1/2 inch when fully developed. The flower has an oval shaped corolla with 4 lobes, a pistil with 4 inserted styles, a calyx with 4 large teeth. The flowers in my picture as very small right now, but you can still easily tell they are female.
These are the male flowers. Male flowers are arranged in small clusters of 2-3 on short branching stalks. Keep in mind that if you see more than one flower side by side, it is definitely a male. Individual male flowers are about 1/3" long, and have a corolla with 4 lobes, a calyx with 4 teeth, and several stamens.
This is a tree that just revealed this year that it is a female. I was very happy, because it is such a nice, big tree I didn't want to cut the top out of it. I think this is one of the NWTF seedlings I got a few years ago.
This is an example of a nice sized female that has been bearing for three or four years now. This one is loaded with flower this year.
This is a tree I topworked last year. I was a male at the edge of one of my plots. I changed it over to a Dogdoc female, and it is growing great. The graft is at the ribbon. All that growth in one year.
This is a smaller tree that revealed it's a female just this spring. That's a wild cherry standing by it to the right. I have gobs of wild cherry, so will probably cut it and open the space up for the persimmon.
You think you have found everything, and then you find another persimmon. This is a native seedling that I found today at the edge of a plot where I cleared some brush. I marked it with ribbon and will clean out around it now. I think there is a good chance this is a female. It is about 40 feet from a big native female, so I suspect it is coming off the same roots. However, we will watch it and go from there.
That's it guys. Hope you enjoyed. Get out there and get to checking.
My thoughts are summed up below:
- It can take about 10 years or more before a persimmon starts producing flowers. It does seem to me that males show their sex a few years before females. So far, all of the ones that have been slow to flower have eventually shown themselves to be females for me. That may not hold true everywhere, but I'm starting to suspect that it might.
- I have both native seedlings and some seedlings I set a few years ago that I got from the NWTF. So far I have had an unusually high number of females from the seedlings I set. From what I am told, this is unusual.
- I've also noticed that when a female starts bearing persimmons it will be slow at first. After a couple years of bearing, the crop starts increasing significantly. Of course, with seedling trees there is a lot of variation from tree to tree in characteristics - just like if you plant apple seeds. Today I noticed that a tree that started bearing sparingly two years ago was simply loaded with flowers. This tree will likely have a bumper crop this year.
- You can topwork a persimmon even before you determine the sex. One advantage of doing this is getting a tree with the characteristics that you want. I have done this myself, but I also enjoy waiting for the tree to reveal its gender. I like a few trees around that are not topworked, and I like the variety that adds. Unless I want a specific variety at a specific place, I generally just wait and leave the females alone and topwork the males I want changed.
- Keep in mind that my pictures below are of flowers that have just emerged, and they will get much bigger as they develop. However, you can already tell the sex at this early stage.
This is the female flower. Female flowers occur individually on very short stalks. Individual female flowers are just a little bigger than 1/2 inch when fully developed. The flower has an oval shaped corolla with 4 lobes, a pistil with 4 inserted styles, a calyx with 4 large teeth. The flowers in my picture as very small right now, but you can still easily tell they are female.
These are the male flowers. Male flowers are arranged in small clusters of 2-3 on short branching stalks. Keep in mind that if you see more than one flower side by side, it is definitely a male. Individual male flowers are about 1/3" long, and have a corolla with 4 lobes, a calyx with 4 teeth, and several stamens.
This is a tree that just revealed this year that it is a female. I was very happy, because it is such a nice, big tree I didn't want to cut the top out of it. I think this is one of the NWTF seedlings I got a few years ago.
This is an example of a nice sized female that has been bearing for three or four years now. This one is loaded with flower this year.
This is a tree I topworked last year. I was a male at the edge of one of my plots. I changed it over to a Dogdoc female, and it is growing great. The graft is at the ribbon. All that growth in one year.
This is a smaller tree that revealed it's a female just this spring. That's a wild cherry standing by it to the right. I have gobs of wild cherry, so will probably cut it and open the space up for the persimmon.
You think you have found everything, and then you find another persimmon. This is a native seedling that I found today at the edge of a plot where I cleared some brush. I marked it with ribbon and will clean out around it now. I think there is a good chance this is a female. It is about 40 feet from a big native female, so I suspect it is coming off the same roots. However, we will watch it and go from there.
That's it guys. Hope you enjoyed. Get out there and get to checking.
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