Looking at my success rates on persimmon grafts this year… pretty big difference depending on rootstock size … which determined whether I did whip/tounge or bark grafts.
I did all these with whip toung to rootstocks that were between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch… these were all wild seedlings out in my field getting good sun.
Now on larger rootstocks… 1.5" to 4" diameter… i did bark grafts of…
Rich Tooie on 4" … success
Zima Khurma on 1.5" … success
Kassandra/JT02 on 1.5"… success
WS8-10 on 2"… failure
JT02 on 4"… failure
CDR on 1.5"… failure.
The Kassandra/JT02 on 1.5" is still green but has suffered serious psyllid attacks in the new tender growth… i have sprayed it with seven and later spinosad. It is still green but has managed very little growth. I have my doubts on it.
Only Rich Tooie and ZK really look good and successful on the larger stock bark grafts.
One downside to my larger rootstocks is that none of them were in full sun locations… they were all in the edge of my field/woods… getting partial sun.
Going forward… will focus on letting some of my wild seedlings… grow for a full season out in my field and then graft them the next spring… they will be in the 5 ft tall range and 1/2 inch diameter. That JT02 graft that has grown over 9 ft so far this season was grafted to one that size. Phenomenal growth.
Definitely nice to have the scion hit the ground running.
My persimmon grafts were bark, whip and tongue, and cleft. They had great contact and pressure (rubber bands), so that’s why I think my trees just rejected them. Oh well, will try again next year.
What kind of persimmons did you try to graft to your Asians? I found that Prok was the only American persimmon that I had successfully grafted to my Asians (saijo and hana fuyu). The other Americans took in the first year but grew poorly and never came back in the next spring. But my Americans to Americans and Asians to Asians were almost 100% no matter what grafting techs were used. Asian to American is a different story - some established slowly and some died in a couple of years but 60% were successful.
I remember someone said on this forum that Prok might be a hybrid - my experience kind of supports this claim.
In my view, Americans as rootstock for Asians could be tricky - you may see incompatibility down the road. Also trees on American rootstock may show wild heterogeneity - I have 2 saijos planted 5 years ago, one is only 2-3 feet but fruited in only 2 years, another one is 15 feet and started to fruit this year.
Americans will not successfully graft to Asian. Hybrids will work though. Asians of course will graft successfully to Asian.
I had a 100-46 grafted to Asian that I thought made it until next year when it eventually died.
Glad you said american does not graft to asian. Didn’t know that. I also had 100-46 on an asian. It was doing great pumping growth and then it was suddenly dead and brown.
Sorry my message was meant for @sockworth. Among astringent Asians, saijo and RB are both worthy to try. You shouldn’t have problems with weather. All Asians grow very well in my 7a zone, never saw any frost damage.
As I said in my original message, heterogeneity among American rootstocks make them not the best choices for commercial Asian persimmon production. At least in China, it’s always lotus for astringent kakis and local kaki seedling for non astringent ones.
I think it’s the same way for most California commercial persimmon orchards. Americans as rootstock probably only improve hardiness, even though I haven’t seen any scientific study comparing Americans to lotus/kaki seedlings.
Why is heterogeneity a problem for home orchards? We aren’t trying to grow all identical trees in a home setting.
DV has numerous advantages over lotus and Kaki rootstock.
What’s DV’s advantage than lotus and kaki seedlings other than hearsay hardiness? Where is the scientific study?
The heterogeneity of DV stock is actually a bigger problem for backyard growers. You only have so much space available and so many years to grow and harvest trees - but with Asian on DV, you could face the mysterious sudden death due to delayed incompatibility in 2-3 years. If you have 5 acres and 100 persimmon trees, that’s no big deal but that’s not the case for most backyard growers.
There are plenty of studies that show DV as a good rootstock for Kaki barring its tendency to sucker. It is now replacing existing lotus and Kaki rootstocks in southern Europe.
Here is one.
virginiana , is tolerant to salinity and has a good development in lime-filled soils, but it confers too much vigor to the scion and produces basal shoots, both of which are traits that make crop management difficult (Incesu et al., 2014; de Paz et al., 2016b). D. kaki is the most used rootstock species around the world, because its compatibility with all the cultivars. This rootstock is not used in the Mediterranean basin because its sensitivity to lime-filled soils and the weak root system developed in those soils that causes pour and slow development (Bellini and Giordani, 2002)
Also @mikatani will tell you that lotus is incompatible with the majority of PCNA persimmons.
In over a 100 grafts done over about 7 years, I found Virginiana grafts to be reliable and healthy growing with no late graft incompatibilities. I started using lotus this year and found many more problems with graft takes than with Virginiana.
This article only shows DV has better salt and alkaline tolerance than kaki rootstocks.
I have already pointed out in my previous messages that lotus is used for astringent Asians and kaki seedlings for PCNA types. So there’s no arguing there.
I used DV as rootstocks for my Asians because they were readily available. One grew beautifully in the first year to 2 feet but didn’t wake up in next spring. The others range from 5 feet to 1 feet after one year’s growth. I have two 5-year old saijo trees, one is 2 feet and another 15 feet. I am not sure such heterogeneity is something attractive to home orchards.
I tried to graft Chocolate and Coffeecake scions to to 3rd leaf Jiro/Hachiya tree (which is itself on Lotus D). Both Jiro and Hachiya had already few inches (maybe 6) of growth when I grafted. I didn’t cut back the Jiro/Hachiya when I grafted.
Hi Trev
What a difference between your Prok and my Prok grafted in 2022. Yours looks to have foliage about 2/3 larger than mine. My leaf character is similar but much smaller. Mine is on top central branch of my Chocolate on a kaki rootstock. I expect your DV rootstock is the main reason. In two growing seasons my Prok graft has grown about 15” on two limbs. That also seem anemic as compared to your DV graft. I got my scions from Englands Orchard so it’s most likely Prok.
Dennis
Kent wa
Virginiana is preferred for the Southeast, partially because of availability and partially because it handles the growing conditions better. Hardiness comes into play when zone pushing with hardier than average Kaki varieties. It doesn’t do much good to graft a hardier than average variety to a rootstock of average Kaki hardiness.
Nothing mysterious about sudden death. All research points to a pathogen that kills Kaki and lotus that doesn’t really impact virginiana. Xylella is the leading contender. If it was Kaki on kaki or lotus, the whole tree would die and you wouldn’t think anything mysterious had happened. On virginiana roots, it would look like the graft was rejected, but it’s really just that the rootstock is surviving the infection that killed the grafted scion. It’s permanently infected, so Kaki will never succeed on that rootstock.
I thought you could have made the same mistake that I had made - grafting Americans to Asians. Asians to Asians is relatively easy, my experience is that grafting when the rootstock starts to push buds if weather permitting usually yields good results.
I had no idea of that pathogen or any research but death of my trees/grafts definitely looked like a graft rejection.
If you were talking about this research paper (Graft-transmissible agents in oriental persimmons (Diospyros kaki L) in the southeastern USA. | SpringerLink), that’s most likely something very specific to the southeast region because 90% of trees of kaki on DV died in 5 years is something most of us never heard of. I know regions in China with similar weather weather conditions as Georgia grow persimmon well (most on kaki seedling rootstocks).
