D. kaki death in zone 8 (SDS)

General Fruit Growing
21

Sorry that you lost a tree to SDS. It wasn’t one of your eight year old Ichi Ki kei Jiros ?

Maybe the sudden death can happen over winter as in my case ? But all 5 seems like whatever causes SDS must be contagious or some psyllid insect ?

I used to live near Raleigh NC in zone 7.
I bought my first persimmon tree while there. It was a Ichi Ki Kei Jiro. The soil was much better as it had been a tobacco farm.
The tree made about 60 fruits. I miss that tree.
I don’t have Ichi now.

I am leaning to mostly American and hybrid persimmons now. You haven’t heard of them dying of SDS have you ?

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22

As far as we understand it, it is an asymptomatic pathogen in virginiana but is deadly to kaki
We otherwise don’t know a ton, check the thread for more info

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The more I try to find out what mistake I may have made the more mysterious this kaki death syndrome becomes !

Someone had an insect theory, a psyllid I think it was.
I saw a photo here on growingfruit and went looking for it on my plants. I should have gotten a photo but I thought I saw a similar insect.

Also I did read about the sudden death syndrome too. Do you use any copper treatment on the bark of your kaki trees ?

Thank God the wild persimmons are so tough !
I’ve got at least a dozen growing on my property and I’m going to be grafting American persimmon onto them.

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Thanks for the sympathy. No, sudden death came to a potted Cardinal that I had purchased a year and a half before from OGW. So it was still a fairly young tree, but showing great promise. As usual, there was a great flush of growth in May / June, then total collapse. Every other persimmon in the vicinity remained healthy.

I have no idea how SDS spreads. I burned the Cardinal carcass and sprayed for psyllids.

I assume the infection came with the purchased tree. For trees that I’ve grafted here, I’ve purchased rootstock trees without incident. And I’ve used root suckers that pop up here, also without incident. I’m gonna rely solely on local rootstock from now on.

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25

I have three trees affected by the dreadful persimmon SDS. I am in southeastern PA.

One young tree was grafted with Kasandra in 2023 and grew well but died in 5/2024 due to obvious SDS. The rootstock was northern DV from Wisconsin, 90 chromosomes.

The other two are mature persimmon trees in production. One is saijo from a Florida nursery, 6 years old; the other one is Hana Fuyu, from a Georgia nursery, 7 years old. Both trees experienced the SDS starting in 5/2024. The young leaves of suckers from both trees are quite reddish, indicating the rootstocks are southern DVs, ie, 60 chromosomes.

Now comes some interesting observations. The saijo tree basically has 2 leaders. On the dominant one, I grafted various kakis, including Fujiwara, Nui Wai, coffee cake, RB, and tamopan, and this leader is pretty much dead. On the other leader, the weak one, I grafted Izu and Prok. Prok is the only DV that I successfully grafted to a kaki. And I later grafted BB and H63A onto the prok. This leader is alive and gave me about 40 nice American persimmons. Izu branch on this leader is also alive but showed obvious SDS and aborted all fruits in June.

The Hana fuyu tree also has 2 leaders. One leader has Niu Wai, Suruga, Fujiwara grafted on it and shows a little SDS symptoms on new shoots on 1-2 Hana Fuyu branches, but is overall pretty much alive and healthy, and gives me about 30 very nice and big persimmons this year (Hana fuyu weighted > 9 Oz). The other leader is majorly Hana Fuyu with one branch of Giant Fuyu. The SDS symptoms are very obvious on the Hana Fuyu branches but little or none on the Giant Fuyu branch. All fruits on this leader were aborted in June.

Just from my three tree, very anecdotal observations, I don’t think the bacteria/virus theory from the Georgia study holds. If it were Xylella fastidiosa bacteria, then my other trees would have been affected, especially my many peach trees in the nearby. Now I prefer the long term grafting incompatibility theory, anyway you can explain every misery of fruit trees with it. :grinning:

My theory is that somehow the DV rootstocks release some chemicals after certain age or exposure to certain climate or growing conditions, the chemicals kill the grafted kaki branches. But American persimmons and some Asian persimmons may have antidotes to these chemicals and thus are not affected much. I will report back what happens with these 2 trees next year.

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26

Look up cherry leaf roll virus and how it affects Persian walnut in California.

https://ipm.ucanr.edu/agriculture/walnut/blackline/#gsc.tab=0

What I’ve read so far highly suggests persimmon is affected by something similar to the way cherry leaf roll virus affects Persian walnut on black walnut rootstock.

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Fusion _power I carefully read about the cherry leaf roll virus and now I’m really horrified.
The black line gradually encircling the grafted cultivar and then the eventual death.

!! the trees.:scream:

Yes I think that is what is going on, yes something very similar.
Asymptomatic carrier trees and victim kakis.

Right now my Fujiwara gosho that I grafted onto
a wild c60 persimmon is looking good. It is beginning to go dormant now.
I sure hope it doesn’t die next year. Ditto for the other two kaki I grafted onto 2 other trees.

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That is fascinating about your two trees !
Not every branch died so surely they have some immunity.
Your trees are giving valuable information about how whatever it is that affects them moves through their branches over time.

Please do keep me updated for them and what happens next year.

I’m no plant pathologist but I would like to know how to avoid problems.

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Thanks for the link…actually quite similar symptoms to the persimmon SDS that I observed. I did have a small canker on the rootstock close to the graft line of the Hana Fuyu tree and profuse suckering on both trees.

So we may get close to something here…

Commercial persimmon orchards mostly use lotus or kaki seedlings as rootstocks except some in Israel use DV rootstocks because of certain soil conditions. There are only a few research papers on persimmon SDS and I am not optimistic we will find the true cause soon.

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30

Here is a couple of ways to avoid some problems.

If you suspect SDS and if you reuse the rootstock (at your own risk) do not graft Kaki or Hybrids on them (yes hybrids get it too). Save those for your wild ones or new rootstock.

Do not use any scions that you graft or have already grafted to them anywhere else. They will infect the new host.

Look for black dots or streaks in your wood including new scions and new rootstock that you receive. This is a prime indicator that a disease is
present.

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I would add also that if you do have a kaki or hybrid that is on D. virginiana roots and currently healthy, do not graft on any D. virginiana cultivars to the same tree. Possibly hybrids as well, since we don’t know which of them are also asymptomatic carriers.

I would consider all wild trees suspect as well. Feel free to graft kaki onto them, but do so with the risk of SDS in mind since we have no idea how widespread the disease is in wild populations.

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I’m just below you in North Georgia, zone 8b. I have a Jiro and a Haiachia. The Haiachia is now about 10’ tall, but has not bore fruit (4 years post-planting). The Jiro is only 3’ tall (not supposed to be a dwarf), and had 5 wonderful fruits last month. I guess I am just south enough to not get those low January/February temps. We rarely get below 28 or so.

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The sap on persimmons seems to turn black when it oxidizes (or something along those lines). Similar to what black walnut does. Some American fruit get the black specks in the fruit. You can see this in the Persimmon 202X threads of graft pictures. I don’t think that’s purely a disease thing.

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Completely different scenarios.

I’m referring to the virus moving up and down due to capillary activity inside the wood. Leaving black streaks behind. If cut lengthwise looks like streaks, looking at the end of a cut looks like dots inside the wood.

Sorry, should have explained it better, or kept my big mouth shut in the first place.

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Is there any difference in long term graft compatibility of kaki on southern 60 chromosome Dv vs northern 90 chromosome? I wouldn’t know because I only like native persimmons, but I’m not so sure that the 90’s like being grafted on the 60’s.

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JCW and GrapeNut, thanks for your recommendations about grafting. Very much appreciated !

I will follow your advice when I receive the scionwood I have ordered for Spring 2025 grafting.

Just to be sure, you both agree it should be ok to graft D.v American cultivars (at my own risk) onto my existing rootstocks that came with (the now dead) Kaki that have grown up in my orchard ?

I usually get at least 2 grafts from a piece of scionwood so the second graft of the same American cultivar I will put onto a wild Dv. that is outside my orchard by some distance.

I enjoy doing experiments and will post late next Summer 2025 how they are doing.

I will observe the scionwood for dots and/ streaks as well.
The only wild persimmon trees on my property are undoubtedly chromosome 60 so I don’t have any other choice.

I have wondered if possibly the Dv 90 rootstock that is bought in bulk for commercial bench grafting may be infected and dooming the Kaki grafts sold by vendors ?
I am hesitant to buy Dv 90 rootstock for that reason.

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Donna_inTennessee I will have to consider that aspect as part of my experiment for 2025.

Earlier this 2024 I did graft all these listed below onto my native wild persimmon trees and they grew
nicely:

100-46
Yates
Chocolate
CoffeeCake
Fujiwara Gosho

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Just FYI, at least most of people who had reported kaki SDS on this forum bought the trees from some southern nurseries, likely on 60c DV rootstocks. Both of my 2 mature affected trees were from southern nurseries and on 60c rootstocks.

Because we don’t know whether the cause of kaki SDS is due to some pathogens (bacteria/virus) or inherent genetic incompatibility, it’s difficult to say which DV (90c or 60c) will ensure lower risk. But it seems kaki SDS is only reported for kaki+DV and commercial persimmon orchards somehow mostly avoid DV rootstocks, it may take years for us to find out the true cause of this dreadful disease.

BTW, I have 2 trees on DV and one tree on lotus grafted with the scion woods from my own half dying Saijo tree. All three trees grow rigorously but it may take many more years to find out whether they will survive long term.

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When my Kaki died I contacted the sellers and asked if they were grafted and they said yes on D virginiana but did not know which 60 or 90chromosomes.
The trees had come from suppliers and they didn’t say which suppliers.
I’ve ordered from Stark Bros, OneGreenWorld and JustFruitsandExotics.

Do you know of any info about Kaki not doing well on Dv 60C ?

Would trees grown from seeds be less risky for virus than buying rootstock from a commercial supplier ?

I may be wrong but it seems unlikely that people doing bench grafting to sell persimmon trees would choose to use 60C ?

The 60C trees naturally grow taller than 90C and
have smaller fruits which just seems inferior.

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I would not expect ploidy differences to affect graft compatibility. The genetic differences between D. kaki and D. virginiana are much greater than those between a 60 chromosome and 90 chromosome plant. Besides, SDS looks and behaves much more like something caused by a pathogen.

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