Hello & what are the earliest ripening American Persimmons?

Szukis and Mohler. Here in zone 5, Mohler begins about the end of August, Szukis a month later.

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My H-118 arenā€™t nearly so big. Interesting. Iā€™d guess the largest are under 2".

@GeneH You might be onto something with the size & ripening. Maybe less fruit (by fruit size) to ripen means fruit ripens sooner in some cases. I just learned of a variety that is growing in 4b that ripens up there & it also has small fruit. Iā€™m still trying to get more information on it (drop time, self fruitful, etc) but Iā€™m trying to get ahold of a scion. The scion wood is in short supply but fortunately I made a friend and it looks like he can get me some.

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@Lee How long a period time do they drop their fruit?

For a month at lease.

You may want to contact or at least keep an eye on Ken Asmus. He has of course closed his nursery, but I had a brief exchange with him recently and it seems he wants to name and release some of his seedlings persimmons that have performed well over the years in his northern location. Am not sure of the time frame. Hopefully that happens, and scions gradually become available.

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Ken is a couple hours south of me. I talked to him maybe 7-8 years ago. He said he had persimmons that were ripening in time every year at his nursery. I asked him for grafted seedlings or scions of those persimmons and he wouldnā€™t do it. He wanted to sell me seedlings from those trees instead & suggested they would likely ripen just like the parent trees. I didnā€™t buy into that & never looked back. He was also very expensive & had very small plants. It will be interesting to see how his trees perform if he releases any.

Meader

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That must have been disappointing. As I recall the Oikos catalog and the descriptions, most if not all items were seedlings. I believe his guiding philosophy was to collect a diversity of seeds, plant them out and see what works ā€“ then keep planting seedlings from those individual plants. In our exchange he did express a concern that the Early Golden cultivar had been overused and posed a danger of inbreeding. He made a point of avoiding that line and collecting elsewhere. I suppose I am doing a vaguely modified approach of that with my few seedling trees ā€“ keeping those that seem to hold promise for my northerly area, and grafting over the remaining with know cultivars. But of course my seedlings were from cultivated persimmons, so not so much genetic diversity. Grafting and worrying that the grafts would survive for his customers would have added a whole new layer of complications that perhaps he just didnĀ“t want deal with. I have so far not succeeded in overwintering a grafted persimmon that was purchased from a nursery ā€“ but I keep trying.

It bugged me that he was trying to sell trees to people that wanted the attributes being advertised such as ripening in Michigan, while knowing that it was unlikely they would get that trait. Thereby wasting years of peoples lives. Fortunately for me I knew better.

Do you know if the grafted persimmons you received from the nursery had made it through a winter before you bought it? I was told by Buzz Ferver from Perfect Circle farm (also Z5) that first year grafts have a habit of not making it through such cold winters. He puts his in a cellar the first winter to protect them.

Perhaps ā€“ but I suspect most people who bought those seeds were doing so to plant for root-stocks, for wildlife, or like me were willing to take the gamble to see if they would be lucky and discover a great new cultivar for northern zones. I doubt any first time gardener would have the patience to wait 10 years for fruit :slight_smile:

Most recently IĀ“ve been doing that, receive them in the Fall and plant in the Spring. I have a few right now in waiting in a detached garage to be set out. Last Spring I set out a grafted H-118; in the late Fall I used a foam tube, made for water pipes, to cover it, covered that with aluminium foil ā€“ the foam tube was black and would have otherwise overheated. I then piled up goat manure at the base. I plan to remove that in April or May when the worst part of Winter appears to be safely past. We shall see! I should soon have my own seeds to plant out for root-stocks.

Hey Lanceā€¦

Here is something to consider that will definitely make a rather big difference in ripening time even for the same varietyā€¦ and that is how much sunshine they get.

My only experience is with wild American Persimmons and I spent some time foraging those this year and noticed thisā€¦

My sister had two really nice trees in her yard and a couple more behind her garage and they were loaded with persimmons this year.

The persimmons on the south/west side of her tree ripened first and droppedā€¦ and a month or more laterā€¦ on the north side of her tree, there was a rather narrow strip of persimmon fruit still hanging on the tree and just starting to ripen.

So even on a single treeā€¦ if it is a rather large tree with lots of foliageā€¦ the sunny side fruit may ripen a good month before the shady side fruit will. I saw that happen with my sisters trees.

Also, I foraged for wild American persimmons and hickory nuts thru Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec this yearā€¦ and found 3 american persimmon trees still holding their fruit into November and one even in Decemberā€¦ These were trees that were growing in partial sun locationā€¦ one was in a morning sun, evening shade location and another that had fruit hanging still hanging into December was in a location where it only got a little (4 hours or so) evening sun.

I think that if you had one American Persimmon planted in a absolute full sun early morning, to late evening locationā€¦ and another planted in a morning sun, evening shade locationā€¦ and another in morning sun, evening shade locationā€¦ you would probably get fruit off those for 3 monthsā€¦ and that is just with one variety.

Said all that to say thisā€¦ no matter how early your persimmon variety is supposed to beā€¦ if you donā€™t plant it in the right location (absolute all day sun location). ā€¦ you could easily make it fruit later than desired.

Good Luck !

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I planned on giving them as much sun as possible & explaining to my northern customers that up in zones 4-6 they really need to make sure they give them as much sun as possible. Ideally all day (especially zone 4) but if not try to get them at least 6 hours of mid day sun if possible. I read where someone on here said sun exposure could make up to a month difference in ripening so what you are saying just reinforces that. Thatā€™s a good point about getting a wide time range for fruit drop with the same variety by controlling sun exposure.

Well, yet another grafted persimmon has bitten the dust. The grafted H-118 set out last Spring didnĀ“t make it despite being well protected. The one I had grafted to an established seedling appears fine however. Both were protected in similar fashon. I did set out more grafted ones just last weekend ā€“ hope springs eternal. I do plan to graft over more seedling trees next month after MotherĀ“s Day.

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I lost a Prairie Dawn myself. Looks like the rootstock is going to leave me something to work with though.