This is not a huge deal, but maybe the info will be useful to someone.
I planted Kassandra in 2017. It was a good sized (2 yr?) tree from England’s. It has grown well, but until now it has produced few flowers and no fruit. This year (#6 here), there are lots of flowers. I’d be surprised if there is no fruit. Fingers crossed.
Last year (2021) I grafted JT-02 / Mikkusu in three places: (1) on a small DV rootstock tree, (2) on an established tree of the Asian PCNA variety Ichi Ki Kei Jiro, and (3) on an established tree of the American variety Prok. Now 1 year later, there’s a decent number of flowers on all three. From appearances, JT-02 seems very precocious.
Very cool! I’ve heard Mikkusu is supposed to be precocious. So far, no flowers for me on my third leaf tree. It’s putting on a healthy amount of growth right now, so hopefully next year!
JT-02 grafted on a Prok in 2019. Flowered last year. No fruit set. A lot more flowers this year, not sure if any fruit will set. The tree itself is a small A persimmon seedling.
I am a visual learner. I like to see pics than reading a description.
I am impressed you got JT-02 to fruit successfully. I don’t have any male persimmon so excessive fruit drops is expected. My Nikita’s Gift dropped 99% of its fruit for a couple of years in a row now.
As precocious as JT-02 obviously is, it’s not enough to overcome inadvised rookie mistakes. I got a couple of scions from a generous GF contact for my first foray into grafting last year, and tried my hand at cleft grafts. To my delight they took, and grew about 6”. However… I did the grafts kinda late, in mid-August. The precocious nature of JT-02 was not enough to get fully calloused to make it through the winter. So, I’ve got to try again, probably next year when scions can be had again - unless someone still has some refrigerated and PMs me!
@Yoda – All of mine got used up in the top work. But there’ll be more next year.
Meanwhile, speaking of “rookie mistakes” – One of my grafts grew extremely well. By August there were multiple branches 2-3’ long with lots of leaves. Then we had a huge windstorm and it demolished the graft. I would have been much better off if I had pruned the graft to one shoot.
That would be bad. Got it from a member. I got JT-02 from two different people. I will post pics from another source for you to see if both are imposter.
On my JT-02, I see a variety of leaf shapes. Some are more like this picture, and some are more like your first picture. If I recall correctly, I didn’t notice much of a difference between JT-02 and Prok leaves when they were younger, but I do see significant differences this year.
Do you know what rootstock it is on? I have found grafting persimmons confusing. My real JT grafted on Prok died. So did my Kam Tam on Nikita’s Gift. They allgrew well for a year or two and died.
This is Prok, seriously top-worked. It’s ~12’ now after serious pruning. The orange tape is temporary labels so I can remember what is where. There are 6 different varieties grafted. Fingers crossed on that. I’ve left some growth on Prok at the top to nurse the rest.
Circled at the left are two grafts of JT-02 from last year, followed by a close up of flower buds.
So, I’ve got to try again, probably next year when scions can be had again - unless someone still has some refrigerated and PMs me!
