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Transplanting Persimmon
- Thread starter Teeder
- Start date
Hoytvectrix
5 year old buck +
I'll be curious to hear what others with more experience think, but my observations with persimmons is that they tend to be pretty tough plants. With that said, they also have a fairly prominent tap root, which might make them difficult to transplant without injuring.
I take it most of these were bare root seedlings when they were planted last year? I put some from MDC in a gravel bed to baby them and transplant them later. I would say they doubled in root size (compared to the above ground growth) in a growing season and I ended up snapping off that tap root. Depending on the growing conditions, they may have a similar size root mass as to when they planted. For what it's worth, I think the majority still did fine after transplanting from the gravel bed.
I take it most of these were bare root seedlings when they were planted last year? I put some from MDC in a gravel bed to baby them and transplant them later. I would say they doubled in root size (compared to the above ground growth) in a growing season and I ended up snapping off that tap root. Depending on the growing conditions, they may have a similar size root mass as to when they planted. For what it's worth, I think the majority still did fine after transplanting from the gravel bed.
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
You will probably be okay since it has only been one year, and the plants are so small. However, as Hoytv pointed out above, the tap roots are a problem on larger trees. If you can move the dirtball around them rather than just taking them out of the ground, it will make success more likely.
I'll be picking up my order of 18 - 24" tall Persimmon seedlings fairly soon. I'll have some left over to pot and then use as fill ins this fall where any of the others died. Which of these would you recommend?
1. Using a typical three gallon pot like ones commonly used for apple trees
2. Using a deep pot like is commonly used for oak tree seedlings
3. Just plant them a few inches apart in my loaming sand near my garden hose and dig them up this fall
4. Do something else that I haven't listed above
1. Using a typical three gallon pot like ones commonly used for apple trees
2. Using a deep pot like is commonly used for oak tree seedlings
3. Just plant them a few inches apart in my loaming sand near my garden hose and dig them up this fall
4. Do something else that I haven't listed above
Telemark
5 year old buck +
I have seen really.impressive results with a sand bed. You have to water rather often, but the root growth looks amazing.
Hoytvectrix
5 year old buck +
I built a Missouri Gravel Bed on our home farm and at my home. Both were constructed with play or creek sand and are incredible for temporarily holding trees. With that said, the persimmons actually grow too well and send too deep of a tap root in even just a single growing season.
Telemark
5 year old buck +
Have you made a post about that? I'm thinking about making one for ROD.
Since it sounds like the taproot is the concerns, I think I will use Walmart reusable shopping tote bags. I've used them to grow oak seedlings during their second summer in the past. They are breathable and so the roots got air pruned. I stapled them with two rows of staples every couple inches to create three vertical compartments, extending from the bottom surface to the open end by the handle. My recollect is that gave me three compartments about 4+" diameter by 15" deep. I didn't get any root crossover from one compartment to another, because of the air pruning at the rows of staples. A minor downside was that they didn't stand up on their own, so I had to sandwich them between two fabric pots I was growing fruit trees in. An upside was that they have handles. To get the trees back out of the bags at the planting site, I popped the lines of staples.
Hoytvectrix
5 year old buck +
I thought that I shared it before but I couldn't find it.
We dug about 6-12" below the soil level and removed the existing vegetation, laid down landscape fabric, and then added about 18-24" of creek sand we sourced from a couple of sandbars that formed from a recent flood. Extra telephone poles were laid on their sides to create the barrier and contain the sand. I modeled this one after one at the University of Minnesota.
This was originally used to temporarily store bare root seedlings that we didn't have time to get in the ground. Admittedly, I became too busy and transplanted very few seedlings from this gravel bed. They eventually became too large to transplant, but it worked well when I used it. If I were to do this again, I would have an impervious surface below the gravel bed to make digging the seedlings up easier. Also, it is likely too big and too easy to fill with trees. A 6 x 10 ft area would be about perfect for what I am thinking.
The smaller one I made at my house in MN is really just an elevated garden bed that I replaced all of the soil with play sand. I use this one for maturing seedlings that are less than a year old. It is probably 12-14" deep and works very well for the size of plants I keep in it.
Hoytvectrix
5 year old buck +
That sounds pretty slick. If you think about it later in the year, share some photos.
Telemark
5 year old buck +
Hoytvectrix
5 year old buck +
The larger and deeper bed was pretty much never watered. I might have watered once because I fertilized the trees with a granular fertilizer and wanted to water it in. I think we lost a few black walnuts but otherwise nearly everything survived with just rainfall. The one at my house I fertigate the plants to push growth. The 3-6 month year old seedlings get watered/fertigated once a week throughout the summer months. Despite being pure sand, I have always been surprised at how little water they need when they are in a bed compared to pots of soil that need to be watered constantly.
Telemark
5 year old buck +
Perfect. I'll get started this week.
