I’ve got a batch of Texas persimmon (Diospyros texana) seedlings that are about one year old or younger (some were very slow to germinate), and I haven’t seen much information about growing this species outside its native range, especially in our cool mediterranean/maritime climate. I figure it’s worth having a thread for this, and hopefully I’m not the first person to give this a try? I’d love to hear other experiences with it.
I do assume @Marta has grown it in the Sacramento Valley, since she sold scionwood this year, but unless I’ve missed it I don’t think she’s blogged about this species yet. And while that’s closer to our climate than the native climate, it’s still pretty different in temperatures, winter sun, and rainfall/humidity.
There are a few threads on this species generally, including this one where I’ve shared photos of my seed germination journey for this batch:
Here’s a post in that thread with my discussion of the ripe fruit that were sent to me by a now-former forum member in Texas:
This older thread has also had some good discussion:
The one year-old seedlings that I planted out last year seem to be only slightly damaged by our recent hard freeze, where I had a minimum of 14.7°F. Here are a couple of those:
The real test will of course be how well they grow this coming season after a full winter of very unusual weather compared to where they evolved.
I have about a dozen seedlings in total, with long-term plans to try to hybridize the species with the black sapote (D. digyna), which has the same ploidy and non-overlapping native range. I haven’t been able to find any reported attempts to make the cross. I’ll need the black sapote to be indoors, which may be challenging because those trees get huge. But that’s a future-me problem.
Yes, my trees are doing fine in my new orchard. I grafted them in spring of 2020 with the wood from two females that was sent to me in one bag. This means I don’t know if I have one or two unique females grafted. I have 3 grafts, and each goes under its number. Hopefully, in few years I’ll taste the fruits and will know how similar they are. The trees could be larger by now, but they had a difficult childhood. I had to move them from one orchard to another. In between the orchards, for over a year they had to sit potted in 30 gallon bags in my yard waiting for the new ground to go in. Anyways, I just posted a short https://youtube.com/shorts/NGCIHzfuqNI?si=ntp_PmEU5GOaoQmx
Those look great! That’s more growth than I would expect for this species in 4 years, that’s promising. Everyone talks about how slow-growing they are.
No, I don’t have a male. They should make the fruits without pollination, but if in a couple years I still see these not holding the fruits well, I’ll graft a male.
I’m hoping they do not produce seeds in the absence of pollination, though, as that would complicate my hybridization plans. My thought was to only have female texana and hit them with pollen from a bisexual digyna cultivar.
I’m not growing it on my place, but i had not encountered a seedless one in the wild. Maybe it’s because they receive plenty of attention from pollinators though.
I am happy (and somewhat surprised) to report that even the very smallest texana seedlings that I thought had been killed by our January freeze are starting to bud out now. These were planted outdoors with no protection from rain or freezing weather all winter. First, the largest one, which didn’t fully defoliate so I had hoped it was OK even before it recently started budding out:
And here’s the smallest one, which I thought was surely dead and the only reason it hadn’t been replaced with a new tree was because I hadn’t gotten around to it yet:
-8°F. However, the seedlings were buried under 7" of snow. Other than that one cold blast, I don’t think it ever got colder than maybe +10F when the seedlings were exposed directly to cold air. They were in a large pot, so that may have contributed to their demise.
Just comparing the range map to the zone map, I’d say it’s probably a solidly zone 8b at best plant, its range ends pretty fast as you enter 8a. I bet 10°F would cause some serious damage to even a mature tree, but I’m just guessing.
So I noticed all my texana seedlings were a bit pale looking this summer, and I’ve tried giving them some fish emulsion without much luck, when I came across a reference on the other forum (TFF) saying they prefer alkaline soils. D’oh! Mine is around 5.6 pH, which is probably much lower than they like.
Is there an easy/safe way to raise the pH for a plant that’s already in the ground? I know that the best way would’ve just been mixing lime in the soil before planting, but I’m not sure if there’s any good way after the fact.
I’ve planted out a couple of the ones grafted on virginiana, and they seem less pale, I’m guessing those roots are more ok with this soil? Here’s one of the grafted ones:
@swincher
You may already have thought of this…but hydrated lime is more fast acting than garden lime. Hydrated lime raises pH in 3 weeks vs. 1 year for garden lime. Hydrated lime is used to turn hydrangeas red.
But, unlike with garden lime, with hydrated lime there’s a chance you can overdo it. You’d need to water it in and test weekly.
