Anyone grafting persimmons yet?

I’m with AntMary, I bench graft persimmons when they are dormant, usually in early April. I store them in the root cellar until danger of frost is past. They are pushing buds just now here in zone 5 upstate NY.

Here are the photos of my back up grafts of my hybrids Cassandra, JT-02, and Rossyanka.

Tony

Here is the snap shot of Jujube, Pawpaw, and American persimmon stand on the sidewalk.

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Tony,
Looked great.

In my subdivision, no one grows anything on that strip of sidewalk except for grass. I believe my town may not like me to grow fruit trees on it :smile:

Seedless persimmon graft .

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Mamuang,

You can be first person to plant it and the rest of the neighbors will follow.:smiley:.

Tony

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Did graft last weekend, finger crossed. As first time grafter, not sure how many will take though.

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Tony,
I would need to train it 6 ft up before branching out. Neighbors use that sidewalk. Can’t let branches get in their way. They need to be low maintenance likpe Paw paw or Jujubes or something that loves salt.

Town plows my street with salt and sand. They even took out the granite curve in front of my driveway. I am confident that they would break tree branches in no time. We are at the end of a cul du sac so it is where a plow truck turns around.

Anyone need any American Persimmon scionwood?
I have some extras after grafting the past few weeks…
I have probably scionwood:
1 Meader
3 scionwoods of Elmo A-118
1 Yates

and I have extras that I got from Lucky Pittman:
2 small scionwoods of NC-10
1 Wabash
1 Ennis
1 SuperSweet
1 Rupp

Anyone want?

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Mamuang,

Jujube should be great because it just grows straight up. A self fruitful Prok persimmon with nice big green leaves and fruits. You can prune the bottom branches like 5 feet up. There you go. Problems solved.:joy:

Tony

Lehman’s Delight from England’s is looking good. This year’s persimmon seedlings are in the background.

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Do they need more heat or sun to help them along? Is that why you have the foil like that?

I’ve read that they can take longer to callus and the use of foil prevents the sun dehydrating the graft union. I haven’t done a controlled comparison to see if it’s really needed if parafilm is used, but it can’t hurt. Maybe @forestandfarm can answer from his experience , too.

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It does work great to help keep them from drying up when it’s hot. I get it now you opened the foil to take the picture. It just happens to look like a dish reflecting the sun at the graft that threw me off.

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I use foil to shade them from the sun. I wrap it around the tree below the graft and through a little tape around it. I make the foil shied tall enough to shade the scion from the hot afternoon sun. This helps keep it from over heating and drying out. The parafilm also helps keep it from drying out.

When I bark graft my native rootstock in the field in high volume, I take some short-cuts to save time. I’m sure this reduces my take a bit. If I have a particular tree I really care about and want to maximize the chances of the scion taking, I use parafilm-M on the scion. Use electrical tape to ensure pressure on the bark graft, use a foil shade, and strap a piece of bamboo to the root stock that is taller than the scion to reduce the chances of a bird trying to land on the scion and dislodging it.

When I’m not grafting a special tree with a special scion, for trees 2" in diameter or larger I just use 2 or 3 scions and cull all but the best when the tree goes dormant. This is faster than all the accoutrements and usually at least one scion takes.

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Have you used grafting rubbers instead of tape? I find they really improve my success. Of course, they won’t fit around a trunk being bark grafted.

I’ve used grafting rubbers on other types of grafts on other kinds of trees. I did use them on bark grafts when I first started. For bark grafting persimmons in the field, I switched to electrical tape because of the ease of use in the field especially on larger diameter trees. It has enough stretch to provide some of the same pressure characteristics as grafting rubbers. I did not notice a decrease in the number of grafts accepted when I switched.

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I think I did 42 grafts this spring a few multiple on a tree and I will likely cull to one, but on a few of my trees that died in either of the 2 prior colder winters on some I left 2 or 3 regrowth from ground for multiple graft take chance. I have some multi-cultivar trees, but I have not tried a multi-trunk tree and might just leave a couple. I have never bothered with the foil, just bark graft with Parafilm and wide rubber bands for support. I think only very few not showing okay at this point and a couple were short 1 bud wood on a cultivar I really wanted success on (thanks Bob) , and wanted to stretch the scion. I was up last weekend at my cabin where some are at. I had not been there since I grafted well over a month ago and expected fail scion as the growth from rootstock had not been rubbed off. I did have ton of growth from below graft but surprising the graft all looked pretty good, but unless I make it there more often I expect to lose some if not all of those.

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I grafted a back up JT-02 Hybrid next to the last year back up bark grafted Tam Kam on the 8 years old Nikita’s Gift.

Tony

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Here is the update photo of my back up Hybrid Persimmons grafts: JT-02, Kassandra, and Rossyanka grafted on top of the weeping Knightville American persimmon tree.

Tony

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How are your persimmon grafts doing?
Here is the recent picture of mine.


The tallest Prok in the middle is more than 3 feet tall with long side shoots. I was really surprised how fast they grow. And that the young growth is so tender, that it bends under its own weight.

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