Thank you!
I am still trying to grow non-astringent Kaki in pot and in ground at 6a. I have 2 in pot Kakis. In pot IKKJ gave me 18 fruits this year and Gwangyang dropped all fruits. I have only one in ground multiple graft Kaki as it needs too much work. I protect the tree by cage them in, insulated by leaves, put tarps around, and heat it using heating cable when outside temperature drop below 0F. They have survived for 3 winters by this method. In ground Tamkam dropped all fruit again this year like last year.
I grafted a few American and hybrid ones (got wood from England) this year, most of them took. I will put more effort on those as I will not protect them. Like kaki, they also drop fruits in first few year, but still I harvested two Rossyanka fruits this year, they are smaller, but they ripe much earlier than Kaki.
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James,
I found that my lawn fertilizers were feeding the persimmon trees and that contributed to the fruits drop. The last few years I skipped fertilizing the lawn areas that were near all my persimmon trees.
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Thanks Tony. I will not fertilize the lawn and persimmon trees next year and hopefully get more fruits.
Does anyone have a good recommendation for astringent persimmons in 6A? I really enjoy sweet and mushy persimmons and it turns out there are far more varieties than I imagined! Iād prefer something that stays relatively small - the short term plan (1-3 years) is to keep it in a large pot until I can afford a place of my own.
I would recommend any of the hybrids that Cliff England sells (google Englandās orchard). Youāll get the cold hardiness of the American variety and fruit quality and size (for the most part) of the Asian variety. Varieties include jt-02 mikkusu, sestronka, kasandra, zima khurma, & Davidās kandy. For size, Cliff recommended sestronka, but I would think all would be great choices.
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Never heard of Cliff, thanks for introducing him to me! After reading about all of the varieties they all sound incredible.
Thank you, that is helpful info!
I will use the chance to ask (all of you) something I was wondering. I have eaten less than a 10 Asian persimmon varieties and do not grow any, as Iām at their northern border and itās a gamble with them here, but I have a few named and several seedling (half of them coming from @Lucky_P 's seeds 15 years ago) American persimmons. In terms of taste/flavor none of the kakiās I have tried is anywhere near as good as any of the virginianas.
My question is, are there Asian persimmons that can compete with American persimmons in terms of flavor, not only sweetness?
I recommend growing Saijo. It is beautiful and Iāve found it to be quite cold hardy. I am also in zone 6A growing persimmon in pots. In terms of flavor it beats out Hachiya and ripens early to mid October.
My tree took a heavy beating this spring from a large rain storm causing a handful of fruit to fall off but I still managed to get 4 fruits. My tree is in its 3rd year, first time fruiting so the first time harvest isnāt that bad. It is in a 10 gallon size, only about 5.5 ft tall. A lot of persimmons can stay relatively small if you want it since persimmon doesnāt grow that fast in colder zones like us and does quite well in containers.
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Your tree looks beautiful! And Iām glad to hear that youāre having success with growing persimmons in large pots. Do you move those pots inside your garage for the winter? I imagine that might help them survive the cold.
Persimmon has a thick tap root and few feeder roots so they can stay in containers for several years provided that you root prune the bottom 1/4 off every spring before it breaks dormancy (if the roots havenāt started spiraling around the pot I wouldnāt do it).
I usually pull them inside the basement or the space under my back staircase. It does fine as low as the temp is above 30 F.
I usually get my persimmon trees from plantmegreen, they have great large trees in early spring, the pricing is pretty good considering it is potted not bareroot. I am planning to add Fuyu and Ichi Ki Kei Jiro from they next spring.
Whoever you buy from, I highly suggest getting potted ones, bare root persimmons are quite tough to get then to break dormancy since the nursery usually ship them with minimal feeder roots.
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I saw your introduction post just now - welcome! Thanks for the tip on bare root trees, I havenāt heard anything about that until now. Does your tree get a lot of direct sun? Trying to decide where I want to put them in my yardā¦
I live in the middle of Chicago I donāt have a lot of direct sun. The most sun any of my trees get is only about 4 hrs but Saijo still delivered a jammy honey-like sweetness. I found it does better for me over Hachiya since it ripens later(risk of frost) due to its large size while Saijo is about only about the size of a small lemon.
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This isnāt a direct answer to your question, but there are a lot of things I like about Asian persimmons in comparison to American persimmons: (1) larger size and potential seedlessness can be nice, (2) I like dried American persimmon pulp (especially with a little bit of added honey for the sake of texture) but dried Asian persimmons can be out of this world, (3) Asian persimmons mostly arenāt ready until my American persimmons are all gone anyway, (4) a firm non-astringent persimmon is very different and there are times Iād probably prefer one to good American persimmons, even though the non-astringents arenāt especially flavorful, particularly not in comparison, (5) Asian persimmons can be picked early and ripened off the tree quite well, (6) the trees themselves are prettier, at least when grown in my climate: the leaves stay healthy-looking pretty much until frost, some varieties have fabulous fall color, and many Asian varieties hold their fruit after the leaves have fallen which is all the more dramatic because of the greater fruit sizeā¦
I think there are some really great tasting Asian persimmons and Asian hybrids, too, but my experience is limited enough that Iāll leave a fuller answer to that question to someone else.
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Not asians but some hybrids come close as far as taste is concerned. Nikitaās Gift for example.
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I have only tried one virginiana from a local park, and itās fruit is excellent. On the same token, I have only tried Nikitaās gift hybrid, and several other astringent Asians. The Virginiana had excellent flavor, but Iām not a huge fan of eating half rotted fruit from the ground. Who knows what kinds of other critters have nibbled on them. Plus, the tree is so large that itās not desirable to me. The fruit is small and so seeded that it is not always the most enjoyable to eat despite the excellent flavor.
I taste the Virginiana in Nikitaās gift, so I think thatās the best compromise. I would assume the other hybrids are similar. You overall get a smaller tree and slightly larger fruit size for a better overall experience. I prefer Nikitaās gift over all the Asians Iāve had, including Saijo. I donāt like Nikitaās gift fruit drop, so Iām hoping the other hybrids hold more fruit and taste just as good.
I do like Hachiya (Asian) but they are very hard to grow in NJ which is my permanent residence. I was burned with zone pushing on too many occasions on that one before I knew better!
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@Harbin, By non-astreing, what do you mean?
PCNA or PVNA?
If a PVNA is enough, I know at least one PVNA hybrid.
It has the added advantage of being very early.
I think I get your point, but Iād note that (1) if virginianas are half rotted when theyāre ready to eat, astringent kakis need to be seven-eighths rotted before theyāre ready to eat, so virginianas come out ahead in that comparison, and (2) as to eating from the ground where who knows what kinds of other critters have nibbled on them, virginiana persimmons would be no worse than strawberries and lots of other fruits and vegetables that are no more protected from critters.
I have a wild persimmon tree on my place thatās fairly big, probably 30ā tall and 8" in diameter. I (or one of my children) pick up the persimmons every morning, so theyāre never on the ground long, and some years weāll leave a rope tied far enough up the tree that I can pull on the other end and shake the tree just enough for the the persimmons that are ready to fall to fall, in which case thereās no time for critters to get to them while on the ground.
I also have friends with a much larger tree (two large stems about 10ā apart but the persimmons are all identical so Iām sure theyāre just two suckers off the same root system) that drops multiple gallons of persimmons per day at its peak. Thatās an easy way to get a lot of fruit in very little time. I see the advantages of other ways of harvesting fruit, too, but if I had an abundance of every sort of persimmon growing on my place, Iām pretty sure Iād still want to pick persimmons up off the ground.
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I tried but, they died. Despite the claims of a large nursery, the Asian persimmons are not hardy to 6a. The hybrids are doing well so far.
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