American Persimmon Questions

Hello,
I was thrilled this fall to harvest my first ever Persimmons from seed grown trees I planted about 10 years ago. Two out of three trees fruited. Some observations and questions.
The tree without fruit definitely did flower, can I assume this is a male tree?
One of the two fruiting trees had quite good fruit early in the fall, no astringency as soon as fruits were deep orange and yielding to the touch. Later in the fall, the fruits retained some astringency no matter how ripe and soft they became. Is this Effect typical, that they ripen over many weeks, and that the quality can vary dramatically earlier vs later?
The other fruiting tree has fruit of horrifying astringency regardless of how soft they because. The fruits could be falling apart and still be a nightmare to eat. They stayed astringent even after a couple hard freezes. Is it normal for some American Persimmons to never lose astringency?
I was also struck by the diversity in the two seedlings, fruit was different size, shape, colors, flavors etc. I wasn’t expecting that much diversity!!
Finally , the awful fruited tree, I’m inclined to try grafting this over to an improved type American Persimmon. Are the selected varieties really large improvements over the random seedlings?

Thanks in advance!!!

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Astringency in persimmon is genetic. The best I’ve been able to find, about 10% of wild persimmons are either low or no astringency. This is regional so you might have some areas that are tilted one way or the other. Definitely graft the astringent tree.

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Thanks for the advice!! :grin:
I will have to find a good cultivar to graft for my area.

You should go with Prok for larger fruits and no astringency when soft ripen.

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This is a good time to check and see if you non fruit bearing tree is a male. Look for the flower stems.
If they are in groups of three it is a male. The flower stems in females are single.

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