This question is threatening to derail another thread. I’m hoping to move it here.
Cliff England’s website says that the fruit is large, 2.50-3.00". He posts a picture that may seem to support that estimate, depending on the assumed size of the hand holding the fruit. My own fruit off a tree purchased from England’s are smaller – more like 1.75-2.00". They weigh ~40 grams, which is only slightly larger than Americans such as Barbra’s Blush and H63A. One forum member from Z6A Kansas suggests that environmental conditions such as ample water and high heat may produce big fruit. My growing season (borderline Z7A/6B) is short; summers are cool (mostly 70’s-80’s); but rainfall is ample.
I’d like to understand the range of observed sizes, and the associated growing conditions. Can you please respond with details on the size of your Kassandra fruits, including (1) typical size, including both (a) length and height in inches and (b) weight in grams; and (2) local growing conditions, including (a) your USDA growing zone, and (b) how much water you add.
Edit: The Kasandra tree displayed on a recent tour of England’s orchard is fairly young. My tree planted in 2017 (and probably grafted in 2015-16) must cone from scion wood taken from another older tree. This raises the possibility that something changed over time (e.g., a bud sport). So if possible, please add info about the provenance of your Kasandra tree. Specifically, when did the wood producing your Kasandra tree leave England’s nursery?
You may want to look for the various videos people posted of the persimmon field day (tour) Cliff recently had as t his orchard. Several showed his Kassandra tree.
Here’s a pic of my Kassandra. They range from just under 1.5" to about 1.75". Roughly round, like little acorns. 40-58 grams, with an average of 47g.
These are really pretty small. To give a comparison, I have a 2" wide Nikita’s Gift which weighs 92g, almost twice the average Kassandra. And I consider NG a bit small for a persimmon.
I got the scionwood from @ncdabbler in 2021 and grafted it to a sucker at a rental property in May. Here’s a pic of the young tree after one season’s growth.
Two years later, it was covered in fruit. I really should go back and pick the rest. I picked about 10 pounds of fruit a week and a half ago, with maybe 1/3 of the fruit left on the tree.
I wish mine were as large as Bobs, but they are little less than 1” diameter, here is how they compare to one off my IKKJ tree. I think it’s my rootstock that holds it back. The foliage is very healthy so I can’t think of a better excuse for such small fruit! Have not tasted them yet. Hope the taste is worth waiting. I think I may need to graft it onto a DV rootstock to get fruit as large as Cliff estimates.
Dennis
Kent, wa
Good suggestion. I looked at one video last night. It seems that his fruits are a little bigger than mine, possibly with a more oblong shape.
I have a question, though: Why is his tree so small? I bought my Kassandra from England’s in 2017. I assume that he took scionwood from an established tree. The tree in the picture seems too small to be that tree. After all, my own Kassandra tree is now at least twice as tall and wide.
It seems extremely likely that there is another bigger, older Kasandra somewhere. Did anyone see it?
I went to Cliff’s orchard tour. I think he has several different farms. I can’t remember exactly when he said he planted all the ones at the farm that we toured, but I think it was 2016 or possibly 2014. I just remember thinking it wasn’t that many years before I planted all my rootstock in 2019, but his were much bigger (mine have a bit more shade).
I feel like the Kassandra fruits were bigger on his tree than ones I got from another local forum member (Cliff’s weren’t ripe at the time). If my memory is right, Cliff’s seemed more oblong, slightly fatter on top than bottom, rather than somewhat round and smaller. I feel like the ones I tried locally were a bit smaller. Perhaps it has something to do with the age of the tree though. I may be wrong about the size, but I had the same thoughts about the size when I had the chance to taste them.
@snowflake – Yeah, but my (unstated) point was to check out the fruits rather than just the tree per se.
The vast majority of the Kasandra reported here and elsewhere are smaller, roughly 1.75-2.00". Ideally I’d see the fruits on Cliff’s other trees to see whether they are as large as advertised.
I always take those sizes with a grain of salt. Since one of the big market differentiators for hardy persimmons is large fruit size, there’s a lot of incentive to report as large a fruit size as possible. So folks are probably going to state how big they get when everything is perfect. In most years in most places, without aggressive thinning, I suspect the average size will be significantly smaller than advertised. I see this looking at pictures of many persimmon varieties. If you believe the stated fruit size for Prok (2.5 - 3"), it would be on par with Fuyu from the store. Most pictures I see of Prok seem much smaller.
@jcguarneri – I agree totally with what you wrote, BUT . . . on his tour, Cliff showed a tree that actually does have large fruit. And a forum member claims to have planted a Kasandra that bears large fruit, consistent with the advertised size. Meanwhile so far, everybody else growing Kasandra reports small fruit.
It suggests to me that there was a labeling mishap. The Kasandra shown on the tour has relatively large fruit that, as BlueKyStream notes, is not quite as round as Kasandra pictured elsewhere. Moreover, the large fruit were produced in a drought year when Cliff’s Kasandra fruit should have been smaller than normal.
I don’t know if this has any bearing on the question but both the ‘Mikkusa’ and ‘Kasandra’ I got from Cliff were a year before he released them to be sold. They were both about 6’ tall in the box, he had used both for stock plants/ clipped scions off. ‘Mikkusa’ hadn’t been named yet. 2 different locations, both fruited in it’s 2nd year.
I doubt that heat makes a difference, provided there is enough water, fertility, and sunshine. But that’s why I’m asking the question, including local growing conditions. Together we can figure out whether there is a climate difference.
I know that I have enough heat to grow normal-sized American varieties such as H63A, Barbra’s Blush and Dollywood, as well as normal-sized Asians such as Jiro and Saiyo, and the normal-sized hybrid JT-02 / Mikkusu. I also have enough heat to grow excellent figs.
Moreover, my smaller-sized Kasandra are the same size as those reported by growers in NJ, WA, WV and KY. Climate seems not to be the issue.
Im also in Ky but no where near Cliff. This year was the first harvest from my kassandra so I have very limited experience with it. Mine is very young still and I expect the fruit will size up a bit as the tree gets established. I have to cut back some pawpaws on either side of it so it can get some more hours of sun and i really need to be consistent with watering before I’ll know it’s real potential.
I have seen a lot of variation in the size of the fruit. Some are indeed round but the largest ones have a similar shape as Prok. The skin and calyx seem very distinct on Kassandra and I dont believe mine is mislabeled even though the fruit is not 3 inches.
Biggest ones are 2inch or slightly larger. On par with Prok so far.
There is one tiny IKKJ in the first photo on the bottom right but you can see the rest of the persimmons have quite a difference in shape and size and they are all from the same tree. That ikkj is from a graft on the Kassandra tree that i did this spring and is not full size for ikkj.
I should have also noted that those pink persimmons in the second photo are Prok and the orange ones are Kassandra. I know most of you guys know this but just for clarity.
@jrd51 the pics were from atleast a couple weeks ago and they are much more red now and ive been pulling them out of the fridge and snacking on them without any astringency. I had some fruit on the tree that had a soft wrinkled bottom and i thought they was edible and found out the hard way they were not.
Have you noticed any wrinkled/shriveled fruit on the tree? Im assuming its the lack of water but not too sure.
