@ Roundface, nice to see that your Hana Fuyu start leafing out. Mine leafed out last week, I was too busy to post.
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I see you have it caged. Do the wildlife eat these trees? I just purchased three American Persimmons. I live in Michigan so weāll see how they do. I wish I could grow the better varieties. I could graft and see how they do but they might just die off from the cold. Mine will probably be to bitter for the wildlife but weāll see. What do you think?
It really depends. Deer will eat most any plant if they are hungry enough, but American persimmons are not high on the preference list. I have them growing natively and Iāve not seen them browsed. I have high deer densities. Last fall I planted Nikitaās Gift which are a hybrid. Not knowing how they would react to the cross, I tubed most of them. However, I had a few with branching and I wanted to collect one of the branches for scions. So, I left about 1/2 dozen of them completely unprotected. I happen to have a remote sensing camera on the field with some of these trees. I get regular pictures of deer in the field.
Last Friday, I finished collecting persimmon scions. I found 1 small bit out of one of the NG persimmon branches. Could have been curiosity. The rest were untouched.
Now, Iām referring to browsing on leaves and branches. As for persimmons, deer love all of them. Kaki persimmons donāt fall from the tree. They can be astringent or non-astringent. Deer will eat Kaki persimmons if they can reach them and they will damage small unprotected trees trying to get to them. They will wait for astringent persimmon to ripen but they will eat non-astringent anytime. All American persimmons are astringent and they fall from the tree. Deer eat these off the ground after they are fully ripe and sweeten up, so the trees generally donāt get damaged.
Deer are not the only wildlife that love persimmon. Raccoon, coyote, bear, and many other mammals love persimmons.
Thanks,
Jack
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I had a groundhog that favored my persimmon trees last year. It killed several small hybrids I was growing out and also did damage to my Nikitaās Gift and a few Kakis. It also ate most of my squash plants. I hope it doesnāt come back! 
I have groundhogs. I canāt grow beans or other green vegetables because they eat them when my gun isnāt in my hand.
Northern MI or southern MI?
Ken Asmus at Oikos Tree Crops nursery in southern MI has met with wild success in growing them:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q431DMyK0fI
As has his buddy, Trevor:
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Iām in the Southeast. Thanks for the videos matt. The pie looks delicious! I bought three bare root trees. Maybe I should get more, or maybe I can find someone with male or female scions and graft onto them. Iāve never seen or heard of a Persimmons tree around here. It will be a unique fruit tree to have around here.
Johnny,
I have rabbit problem at my backyeard. I need to protect all little tree by default. I am not sure about other wildlife problem for persimmon tree. My trees are asian persimmon trees, kaki and haciya. I planted them all at last year, all of them are growing slow and they leafed out late. Other than that I do not have much experiance about persimmon trees.
The rabbit problem we all have is like watching road runner cartoons and I feel like wylie coyote!
Hi Tony,
I am in zone 6b and very interested in your trials with planting persimmons a foot beyond their graft line in the ground. Have you seen any growth issues with them being planted so deep due to less oxygen making it to the roots? Also, have you seen any die back and regrowth from the grafted variety?
Thanks,
Pat
PSW,
So far, my Ichi, Rossyanka, and Nikitaās Gift did well with this method. The Nikitaās Gift died to the ground one time in 2009 and re sprout true to the grafted variety. The Rossyanka can handled the cold to -20F so no issues there. The Ichi Non-astringent Kaki, I do Winter pro when the temp dip down below -5F by wrapping it up with a tarp and hang a light bulb on the middle of the tree for a heat source.
Tony
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Tony,
Thatās great to hear. Thanks.
I have to report on an extended dormancy instance with my Fuyu. It is just leafing out now in June zone 10b Miami, Florida after almost a whole year of dormancy!!! Mindbogglingā¦
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Wow, it is late considering you are in FL!
Iām in z6 and 2 yrs ago it was very late. Last yr it fruited for the 1st time after 1 yr mayb 2 yrs of growing (container) but the one fruit aborted. This year I have 5 fruits that are slightly smaller than a penny. I donāt know if they would succumb to the June drop.
I do have some leaf damage at the tip, a little grey and curled up. Fungus?
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Native American Persommons. A gentle shake of the tree and the ones that fall are the best. These were a fantastic treat this morning.
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When to Pick Asian Persimmon:
My Giboshi are fully colored yellow/ orange but are still hard and not yet that deep, dark red/orange color.
Is now too soon to pick and let ripen on counter?
This is first year Giboshi has really held a crop (ten years old) so never had to assess picking time before.
Thanks.
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I found this on garden web:
Many astingent Asian varieties go through ripening stages evident by their color changes from green to light orange and then a dark deep orange and finally become somewhat translucent and soft when fully ripe. Many will fully ripen off the tree if theyāre picked when or after theyāve reached the darker orange stage. In fact if the idea is to dry them, I would not allow them to ripen any further than dark orange as they become more difficult to handle as they soften
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If they are fully colored, they should be ok to harvest. However, try to find out if giboshi is early, middle, or late ripening. If itās late ripening, maybe keep them on a little longer. I followed the advice of a poster here, and picked my late ripening varieties before temps fell in the 20s. You might want to put netting around them, as birds will be attracted to the bright color even if they are not ripe.
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Today i had one ripe persimmon fruit, i donāt know what is it Diospyros virginiana or Diospyros kaki?.
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The leaf looks like D. virginiana to me.
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