One Green World has a new variety with the trademark name “Cardinal”. They say its the earliest ripening non-astringent kaki, but they don’t sell Izu. Apparently Korean. I’d never heard of it before them, just bought a tiny one for $40, and need to find someplace to plant it.
They also say it ripens 2-3 weeks before other varieties, but don’t say what those other varieties are. From the notes on their website, it sounds like they are a bit swamped, so I’m not trying to get ahold of them for more information.
I was talking about this tree with a couple members via private messaging. I ordered one to try for fun. It’ll probably live in a pot for a couple years so it can gain some size before I test it against my unpredictable Northeastern weather. I wonder if the picture OGW uses is of the actual tree or if it’s a generic stock photo.
Mine arrived today in the mail. I posted a picture of it in the OGW review thread. The tiny plant showed evidence of fruiting, which is very surprising to me. Too bad the flowers/fruit weren’t pinched off at the nursery, since growth would have probably been improved.
I got 3 grafts to take on a multibranched rootstock. It’s still overwintering indoors in a pot right now. How is the fruit quality and when does it normally ripen for you?
It all depends how you want to eat it, fully ripe to when they turn reddish or hard like an apple, either way they are good. When they are fully ripe(soft) they taste like a milder astringent one.Pretty good. When do they ripe do? Just like the others, they can take freezes pretty good even when fully ripe.
My tiny Cardinal didn’t leaf out until a few weeks ago. Then only one bud, about an inch above the graft union.
Apparently little wimpy growth doesn’t appreciate 115 degree weather in June. Assuming that’s it for this tree, I’m hoping a can work something out with another member with the variety. Seems easier than dealing with OGW.
My Saijo 30 feet away, but well established, is loving it so far.
Likewise my tiny OGW Cardinal. Only 1 1/2" new growth.
Maybe the planting aphorism applies: “sleep, creep, leap”.
Temp here 97F.
Similar to you, my established Saijo seems happy. But ripening before Thanksgiving is always borderline here. At the human cost of heat without AC, this year might be better for the Saijo!
I ordered on from them this spring too. My plan is to try and grow it in a pot. I’m not sure how well that’ll work out. Mine is actually putting on quite a bit of growth so far this year. The size that they sent was pretty disappointing though.
Here is mine still in its original pot and needing up potting soon. I plan on keeping potted until at least next year before planting since my winters can be damaging to young kaki. I kind of feel bad for complaining about its size when I got it. It’s a tad over a foot now. I was originally going to clip a tiny bit off to graft to an established rootstock for better growth but the plant had very few visible buds when I received it. It appears that the plant tried fruiting last year. I saw the peduncles to which fruit are born still on it. Interesting, there were no viable buds at these points where it tried fruiting last year, so nothing leafed out at those points. Only 1 large bud near the top grew and a small one near the rootstock.
I got a Korean variety called Gil Ya from edible landscaping nursery. It turned out to be the same as Izu. Not my favorite variety — slow and weak grower, tastes similar to Jiro which isn’t worth growing in the PNW.
I have been researching persimmon ripening only to come to many dead ends. Corresponded with Scott and Alpea about the need for prospective growers of persimmons to have a method of determining a variety’s potential before investing time and resources. They suggested we could try writing a Wikipage and using that as a fact gathering mechanism sort of like the winegrowers of Ca that used technology to determine what works. So I have drafted a proposal for submittal and hopefully approval. It would be helpful to have several members l, with similar interest in persimmons, to review my draft and help me improve it to capture all the data we would ultimately need. My goal is to have it approved and open to members to input data before fruit begins to ripen this year.
If you would like to help review my draft, just PM me with your email so I can send you my draft.
Thanks
Dennis
Kent, wa
You at least know it’s a female tree of some sort. I got a mislabeled one from them — Fuping Jianshi. It turned out to be something more similar to Fire Crystal or the same. I’m hoping these Cardinal trees are legit.
I’ve had locally grown, non-astringent persimmons that were good enough to be worth growing. I don’t know what variety.
I assumed Izu would be earlier, and better than those. My “Izu” seems to have been mislabeled, so I grafted Izu scions from Fruitwood Nursery back to it this year.
How did you find out yours is Izu? Is Izu Korean, or yours what they call Izu in Korea?
Aside from being well over 100 degrees out, its windy. I just checked on my persimmon grafts. All the ones that are leafing out still look okay. but one of my 2 giombo grafts, whip and tongue, is missing. I think another branch, from a different quadrant of the tree, smacked it. That’s never been a failure mode I’ve considered.
