2018 Grafting Thread

Maybe I should make a little presentation .

I am not a nurseryman, but I am a graduate of agriculture.
By passion I collect fruit trees. I have a little passion for khaki, but my belly is too small to eat everything… ha ha
Regarding the persimons, I have a small collection (about 120 varieties), which only asks to grow.
I transplants several ways.
In 2017 I grafted 380 khaki trees with about 90% success.
In 2018, 260 trees grafted for 5 failures, or 98% success of 73 varieties.
I do not have much khaki experience, but I think I can talk about it.

In khaki, nothing is acquired. We learm every day.
I am very interested to have your feedback from your grafts on virginiana.

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Hello Arhus, what a nice surprise to see you here. You should slow down with the diospyros varieties else you won’t have anything left to graft in the upcoming years :wink:

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@JamesWNY
@ampersand

Rosseyanka and Saijo are rapidly breaking out of the parafilm! It is amazing: just two months ago, these things looked like a couple of dead twigs:

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I love meeting a fellow persimmon enthusiast. Something about persimmons really gets me going. I can see why this conversation continues. If you were in the States I would beg to come by and check out your collection.

First, I believe we are talking about two different issues. You are speaking of flat out rejection. I am speaking of the decline and eventual death of D. kaki on D. virginiania. I think this is where a lot of the confusion lies. When I say decline I mean very slowed growth in the final years. I witnessed this several times on trees planted around the neighborhood where I work, despite being in a suitable climate zone. The rootstock continues on in these cases and suckers profusely. From what I understand, you are seeing some type of rejection starting on day one. Out of the ~750 bareroot persimmon grafts on D. virginiania I completed this year alone I have not seen any immediate rejection like the one you described. I am not saying this immediate rejection, akin to a blood mistype, is not possible. Personally, I have never seen anything like it in all the varieties of species I have grafted. Sure there are some failures, but it could be from multiple causes. I do inspect my failures and they all look the same — little to no callousing with shriveling and eventual darkening of the scion. This darkening of the scion usually takes quite some time because I wrap my scions very well to prevent dessication.

The same Pomona article I mentioned previously did mention a percentage of D. virginiania rootstock will reject Kaki grafts, but I believe if this same rootstock was grafted again the next year it would more than likely take (I have purposefully regrafted my failures with the same cultivar for the last few years with excellent results). To be honest, even if a small percentage of D. virginiania rootstock do exhibit some type of rejection for a specific cultivar it’s a minor issue. Try grafting another cultivar or just use another rootstock. Extending the life of these trees to create a legacy is what my goal is for any tree I grow, and this is the reason I am using these interstems.

The main reason I posted the photo above was to show the black sap you spoke of earlier. It is leaking through the parafilm at the point where the bud is breaking through the parafilm.

The hybrids are new and we all have much to learn. The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. I doubt we can ever say with 100% certainty that X won’t work but Y will. Saying hybrids are not the solution for incompatibilities is just as wrong as saying they are the solution. There are far too many factors (% of each species in the hybrid, individual rootstock genetics and health, chromosome #, unmatched chromosomes?) to make either of these two statements. I have spoken to Cliff England a few times, he has ~80 acres of hybrid persimmons. Most of these end up males, he has a LOT of hybrid rootstock.

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Hi Paul

I will maybe look a little more virginiana this year. I have few. …
For the coming years I will have the multi-graft. You know I like khaki. But I will reduce a little on this side.

I will keep on non-planted area to make the selection of persimmon and hybridization to play a little… ha ha

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Hello,

I see that I did not express myself well or that we did not understand each other.
I took this example ta say that hybrids are not the 100% solution, bécasse there are always particular examples. Here is one.

It will certainly find the most satisfactory hybrid to avoid these problems on the majority of asian persimons.

For you, a persimon on virginiana life how much time on average?

In my secteur we have difficulties to find virginiana seeds . It’s for this reason that I graft d.lotus with virginiana and hybrids, to graft on khaki.

The causes of failures are many. With persimons we always have surprises. That’s I like.

Here a lotus root (sown un 2016), intermediate meader (graft 2017), and 2 varieties of Lehman in 2018.

I don’t know the variety Kynag Sui un your photo. Van you tell me more?

Is there any difference in grafting between 60 or 90 chromosomes?

Don’t be impatient. I found another way to screw up: I see no growth on 4 pawpaw grafts at 5 weeks and cut them off only to discover under the parafilm the graft had taken and was starting to push. I grafted pawpaw at a friend’s place and it took in two or three weeks so I figured mine were goners. Wrong. I know better. Guess I wanted to get rid of any visible evidence of a “failed” graft. Be patient, grasshoppers.

PS I still have that variety in my other tree so can re-graft next year. Live and learn.
PPS One reason the grafts took so long to develop: I placed them in not very dominant positions in the tree. So lesson two is put grafts in dominant spots with good sap flow and little or no nearby branch competition.

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Superb Steve. Well-written.

Dax

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I’m feeling a little guilt for our conversation so I will post some photos so others don’t get too annoyed.

In my own collection I have yet to see the decline I mentioned previously, but my oldest persimmon trees are only 8 years old. The Pomona article mentioned previously suggested 30 years max. From what others have reported the kaki tree can live for varying amounts of time when grafted to D. virginiania. If I had to guess, the trees I seen expire were approximately 15 years old. For my climate and soil, D. virginiania or a hybrid would be the best rootstock. D. lotus struggles in my soil and tends to get damaged by our neurotic Spring weather. From what I understand D. kaki performs poorly in salty soil, lacks drought tolerance and is too susceptible to cold damage.

This tree is on D. lotus. Notice the rootstock is slightly smaller than the upperstock. This tree has struggled during our droughts, plus it completely lacks vigor.
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This is typical of kaki grafted to D. virginiania rootstock. I love this tree.
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My local 60 chromosome persimmons outperform the more northern 90 chromosome persimmons. I don’t believe ploidy has any effect on compatibility for persimmons. I think my local trees do better because they are locally adapted to my climate and soil. Here is a big local persimmon, two trunks.


While I was taking the above photos I cut off more of the understock branches.

I obtained my first Kyungsun Bansi graft wood this year. It is supposedly one of the better astringent types, but I’ve heard mixed reports. I may have the spelling wrong.

Also, I wonder what long term effects having all these hybrids will have on the genetics of the local persimmons. Unmatched chromosomes??

Here are some bench grafted interstem tests and various other things…
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image

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Apples and some pecan

Black walnut and pear

Persimmon, black walnut and pear
image

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I’m making stakes to train the wild growth.

Gotta put these guys to work… they don’t seem to mind.

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I like your goats

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To change, asiminia grafted

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Not that it matters, but it’s Asimina spelled correctly for the botanical name.

Regards,

Dax

In Kansas what I needed to graft this year was field trees and unfortunately our temps went from 20 to 90 with not much in between. Looks like grafts are a total loss this year. My location in Kansas is taking a beating this year. Hay is half it’s normal height which will make what’s there extremely valuable. The water table is down by 4 feet and my location is finally up to 5 inches of rainfall for the year but that does not count dew.

Yes Asiminia triloba or Asiminia sp. Sorry

I know. Here we hit 100 once and 98, 95 etc. Where you are it went to 90 and here it went to 80. 80 was great for grafting. My results are phenomenal in-ground.

Dax

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Cleaned out all the stored scions from the refrigerator this morning. Not that there was a big need but I couldn’t resist trying four more grafts this morning from my January stored scions. Most of the stored wood still appeared viable.

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Clark, maybe the weather was my problem, too, then. I tried grafting for the first time this year. Did 22 grafts. The scions were in nice shape from Bob Purvis. It appears that only a Yakima plum grafted to a Superior plum that I planted last spring is growing. Somewhat disappointing, but one is better than none.

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I just got off the phone with Cliff England. Others may find some of this interesting.

@Arhus76 I was going to edit my old posts, but I decided just to make a new post. I appreciate all of your information. I hope you share your experiences with your persimmons. You guys have access to a lot of things we don’t, but I guess that goes both ways.

First, I do not have a 50/50 male Rosseyanka (despite my invoice saying so). I have 75% Virginiania 25% Kaki male, which is polygamous. It produces some fruit according to Cliff. This male is the one used in all/most? of the late David Lavergne’s breeding projects.

Second, he feels there is a lot of misinformation regarding Kaki decline and death. Basically, he feels it’s cold damage and so does Jerry Lehman. He told me he has seen Kaki grafted on lotus/Kaki over 400 years old. I don’t think my Kaki on lotus will live that long, they look like crap in my soil. He also told me he has Kaki on Virginiania over 25 years old. I lack the experience to fully disagree that it’s just cold damage. From what I’ve seen in zone 8B I think there is something going on that no one can pinpoint. I really wish I took a photo of the two persimmon trees side by side; one woke up last Spring and the other didn’t. He told me this could have been Spring freeze damage… maybe he is right. These late freezes may weaken the tree leaving it vulnerable to disease. I know nothing of your weather conditions across the pond, but I imagine you all have a lot more of a buffer than we do in the Eastern US.

The polar vortex is really doing a number on Cliff’s Kakis. Cold tolerance is critical for him.

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