As our winters locally become more temperate I am slowly replacing already low-chill deciduous fruit trees with ultra-low chill selections. And so yesterday I went in-store shopping at Green Thumb San Marcos and Walter Andersen Nursery in Poway. I came home with a few things, including this grafted Chocolate Persimmon sapling grown by Dave Wilson.
How about citrus? How many varieties do you have? And Mangoes? Both should be perfect for your climate…
A little cool here for some mangoes but Valencia Pride and Timotayo work well – I’m growing the latter.
For Citrus I have Bearss lime, Eureka lemon, Gold Nugget and Frost Owari mandarins, Minneola tangelo, Washington navel, and Nordmann seedless kumquat.
Of Central American origin I have Reed avocado, Suebelle white sapote, and Pouteria viridis (Green Sapote). From South America: Cambuca, Cherry of the Rio Grande, and Jaboticaba. From Africa: Kei Apple and Conkerberry. I also have the native evergreen Catalina cherry-nut tree.
All of the above plus my estranged Gordon and White Winter Pearmain apple trees are evergreen perennials – and the Hood pear is nearly so. The 4 banana varieties – being monocot bulbs, are in a category of their own.
Our in-the-ground zone-pushed producing deciduous fruits:
Bababerry raspberry
Ollalie berry
Arapahoe blackberry
Southern Home, Black and Gold Monukka grapes
Soft-seeded Rose pomegranate
Garden Prince almond
VdB fig
Cot-N-Candy aprium
Mid-Pride peach
Desert Dawn nectarine
Lately not producing well:
Beauty Plum
Snow Queen nectarine
Flavor Grenade pluot
Katy apricot
Still too young to tell:
Jiro persimmon
Royal Crimson cherry
Placentia walnut
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Budding out
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I’m grafting chocolate persimmon onto my saijo persimmon this year, along with coffee cake. I’ve never tasted either.
Good luck with the new tree Richard!
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Coffee cake is very tasty basically a fuyu with a cinnamon kick, same boat as you on the chocolate had fruit set 2 years ago but all fell off last year ton of flowers but none took hope third years a charm…
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It’s looking good Richard! You might get to taste a chocolate Persimmon really soon. Congrats
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I always try to use existing threads when I can, even though it be a little off topic from the Original Post.
But I have a question that is really important to me and I am REALLY hoping someone can help with an answer.
So, I have 2 American Persimmons that I top worked 3-4 years ago and have become quite nice trees. Problem is, I’ve managed to loose the tags and can’t find my records showing what I grafted to those rootstocks. I’m certain that it was Asian Persimmons and from my own stock, but I’ve had many varieties and several of them have died, so I can’t just compare my new trees to my existing persimmons because the new grafts likely were from something I no longer have.
SO HERE IS MY QUESTION…
I strongly suspect the new tops are chocolate, but my chocolate died so I can’t look at it or its timing. The one unique thing about my new trees (the ones I created by grafting some kind of Asian to an american rootstock) is that the new trees are much later to leaf out. Like 2.5 weeks. All my other Asian persimmons have sent out small leaves already, but my mystery trees are just now at bud swell (yes, they are alive and well for sure, just late).
So: Can anyone tell me if Chocolate persimmons wake up and leaf out later than things like Fuyu or Saijo. If not, what about Hachiya? tanenashi?
I really think these are Chocolate, so I’d love to hear from someone who has chocolate along with Fuyu and Saijo and hear whether Chocolate is later to push leaves than those 2.
I also have some American/crosses like Yates and Meador and they are also just waking up, but I didn’t have them when I did these grafts and I’m 99% sure I used an Asian scion to make these 2 trees.
Any help? Thanks.
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One unusual trait of Chocolate is that it produces male flowers, in clusters of 3, as well as female. Mine mostly produces male flowers.
Not many Kaki do.
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I had actually forgotten about that! In fact, before my original chocolate died, each year it had more and more male flowers and in its last years I don’t think there was a single female flower or fruit on the tree. Anyway, it should only be about 5-6 months before I know what my mystery grafts are. Someone told me via PM that they have some saijos that bloom 2-3 weeks apart even though they are both Saijo, so even if someone said their chocolate bloomed at same time as Saijo, it wouldn’t necessarily tell me what kind of persimmon it was since bloom times can vary so much even among same varieties, let alone different varieties.
Thanks for the male flower reminder, Marky…The blooms on my grafted trees will be out soon and if there are males, that will basically prove they are chocolate since I don’t get males from any other of my varieties.
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How well does it pollinate your Jiro tree, Richard? Mine only produced female flowers last year. I grafted other pollinators out of frustration.
Man, mine only produces male flowers. Its had a couple of female a couple of times. Still small.
Last year I removed all the flowers, so this year we shall see!
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I think you will be very disappointed in this tree unless you happen to have already tried the ripe fruit and liked it. I have beets grafting over my chocolate for three years now. The only thing good about my tree is I have about 7 years of mature scaffolds to receive better varieties as I add them. I plan to remove the last chocolate limbs this year so thankfully, I won’t have to pick off all those male flowers this year. It’s without doubt the most difficult persimmon tree that I am aware of. If you let your chocolate pollinate your female flowers you will learn what I mean. Let me know this fall if you like the result.
Good luck
Dennis
Kent, wa
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Should any of my trees turn unsatisfactory I have a long list of possible replacements.
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Somehow, in my wisdom, I managed to position my Chocolate closer to all of my other kaki than to the Coffeecake I got it to pollenize. And now I’ve added California Maru next to it. Interestingly, the maybe Jiro (Not Izu) next to the Chocolate produced mostly seedless fruit in spite of the fact that the Chocolate, fewer than 15 feet away, had a bunch of male flowers last spring.
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my maru also had lots of male flower last year
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