Do You Thin Fruits on Asian Persimmon or Papaw?

Do any of you make a regular practice of thinning the number of fruit on your Asian Persimmons or pawpaws? When is best time to do it- as soon as fruit form? Many thanks for any ideas. (Will soon post a photo of my First Ever successful persimmon graft but I’ll wait a few more days to Make Sure.)

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I have a fuyu… it drops the fruit it cant hold on it’s own. Peaches I have to thin, the persimmon I never bother with.

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I only thin out large cluster of pawpaw like 6-8 fruits. I let them size up to the pinky size then thin them down to 3 fruits per cluster. I only thin my Ichi Asian persimmon if the branch can’t handled the fruit load.

Tony

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I thin my Eureka persimmon. It drops on it’s own pretty good at about size of a quarter. But I’ve noticed that if I don’t thin off more the bloom tends to be light the next yr.

It’s the only fruit I thin after the natural drop. Everything else before.

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Very helpful, thanks everyone.

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That’s interesting… every few years I do get a smaller crop on my fuyu, but it is still such a prolific tree that even a smaller crop is plenty.

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I have 7 Asian persimmon trees in total (2 Izu and 5 Fuyu). I do NOT thin any of them but just let them drop naturally. For any of you with large, tall greenhouses in climates marginal for persimmons, I highly recommend growing your persimmon trees inside the greenhouse. I have one in ground, two in 35 gallon planter pots and they all give huge fruit. Literally like grapefruits vs oranges in terms of the size difference. Twice the size of the persimmons they sell in the supermarkets in the fall. My outside, in-ground tree gave a good crop last year (120) for the first time (year 7 since planted). Unfortunately, I had to pick most of them early (by about Halloween) cause the raccoons and rodents were eating them and ruining my harvest. The greenhouse persimmons I could leave on the tree and we picked the last one around New Years Eve. So delicious when picked ripe off the tree. Just my $.02.

Anthony

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My this year 2017 planted Fuyu self thinned to one fruit. All the new limbs only grew about 3" and stopped. Is this a result of it being a newly planted tree or is it going to put on another growth spurt this year? Right now I’m having a difficult time finding even decent looking scion wood to convert my American persimmons over.

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Persimmons tend to have two flushes of growth per year. So you should see more growth soon.

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thanks

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Like Tony, I also clip overpopulated paw paw fruit clusters from 3-6 down to maybe 2. It is typical for some to be mis-shapen/smaller than other cluster members, so I just remove the less impressive ones and leave the biggest couple. I would much rather have a couple full sized fruit than several unimpressive runts. They usually get their haircuts when <2" long.

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I do not thin my persimmons. I find that they are sufficiently self-thinning. They are all on the young side, so each fruit is valuable to me! Supposedly, persimmons tend to hold more fruit if pollinated, so I would consider thinning if that was applicable to me. Unfortunately, it is not even though I am considering planting a male tree to increase fruit production.

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