Wow. I thought that PCNA persimmons were the gourmet varieties. At least to me they are
I have a few astringent trees (Nikitaās Gift, Chienting, Rosseyanka, Kassandra). I used to have more, but have been grafting over to them because I canāt stand any astringency in my persimmons. Until I saw this thread, I thought a PCNA being astringent would be a rare event or maybe if you tried to eat it completely green.
Iām at 41 degrees N and Iāve only heard of 1 NA persimmon which had some astringency. My mother is similarly (or even more) opposed to any astringency, yet loves NA persimmons. I picked the first half dozen IKKJ on 10/17 and gave most of them to her a week or so later. She said they were average to good, except for one of them which was astringent.
Iāve had several Nikitaās Gift in the mid-30ās, with one topping 40 brix. When perfectly ripened they are very rich and tasty, probably the best astringent persimmon Iāve had. But, they donāt always lose their astringency, and arenāt really worth it from my perspective. When I move, I donāt think Iāll bother bringing it (or grafting it) with me.
Another possibility is that the high temp curve is much smoother for the PNW. Maybe it is the warm sunny days (even if they only happen some of the time) which help remove the astringency in the PCNA.
I think the āgourmetā variety is the one that isnāt produced in huge quantities in your neighborhood. :). Once I visited a farmerās market in LA. There were āFuyuā persimmons (mostly still green) for sale by the thousands. itās hard to think of Fuyu as gourmet after that. On the other hand Iāve seen adds for individual, gift-wrapped, ripe Taishu fruits in Japan for >$20.
You seem to be saying that warm sunny days are more frequent (āhigh temp curve is smootherā) in the PNW, which helps remove astringency there. The problem is that Ram harvests astringent PCNAs in the PNW. My weather in RI is more erratic (and sometimes rainy in summer) yet my IKKJs, Taishus, and Izus have no astringency.
I had a couple that recently came back from a visit to Japan and they were raving about persimmons. They were really excited to try my persimmons since they had had such a positive experience.
I had them try H118 and a few hybrids. They were both so impressed by these and even said these were far better than the ones they had in Japan.
The first Izu I purchased ended up being a PCA kaki that resembles Hachiya. So I had full confidence that it wasnāt really Izu. My replacement Izu is a PCNA, so it may well be Izu, but I canāt distinguish it from my purported Wasu Fuyu or Maekawa Jiro from the same nursery. They all ripen at about the same time, and the fruit seems identical. That makes me wonder how confident any of us can be that what weāve purchased from commercial nurseries or received in trades is truly Izu, Fuyu, Jiro, or other related PCNA varieties when the differences between them are relatively subtle. There does seem to be a good deal of confusion around kaki persimmons, even among generally reputable and reliable nurseries. I suspect that our different experiences with growing what are allegedly the same varieties may be a result of mislabeling as much as climate, shade, moisture, etcā¦
Exactly, thatās what I was trying to say - if the differences are too subtle then it makes it hard for any of us to distinguish a mis-labeled tree from the real thing, and we may not be comparing the same varieties at all, even if we sourced them from the same nursery.
The main innovation of the Japanese breeding program seems to have been greater dispersion of ripening times, with the development of early ripeners such as Soshu and Izu. This was complete serendipity. It wasnāt a goal of the program and it came as a surprise. Even now I think itās unclear why crossing mid/late-season ripeners should lead to an offspring that is early ripening.
